I agree with Mattk – I’ve got a touchscreen phone and a Kindle. Whilst I love the phone, when I’m using the Kindle fingerprints would be really annoying and it’s too easy to touch the edge of the screen when reading, so IMO touch would be more annoying than helpful!

You could try looking for an old set of Hope C2’s – the Giant MPH is a licensed copy of the C2, so the levers are probably interchangeable.

Difficult to get new, though – Don’t think they’ve been on the market since 2002 or so!

Pipedream Moxie?

So that’s £70 for a years worth of scrap from a commercial source…that’s kind of my point, when you scale down to the amount of scrap you’ll generate from home.

Given the current media frenzy about the high prices of scrap metal driving a massive increase in crime, it’s surprising how difficult it actually is to get enough to be worth the effort.

If you have access to a commercial supply (I work for a transport company specialising in commercial catering equipment, and the boss used to reclaim a lot of stainless from the fridges, for example), you can get some reasonable sums, but you’d struggle to get enough for bike parts to be worth the effort.

Iron / mixed metal currently £140/ton approx, Stainless around £1200/ton & £4000/ton for copper & brass.

Sounds like a lot, but to give you an idea, we’re lucky to get £700 or so for a 3.5ton van full of metal that took 6-8 weeks to accumulate. That was a van full of large stainless panels from fridges and tabling, and a few other bits and pieces.

Oh, and it’s only stainless if it’s non-magnetic…

Trust me, it’s not worth the effort for a few bike parts!

Non WRX Subaru?

Just gone from a Galaxy S to a Galaxy S3 and one of the biggest differences is battery life – I used to charge overnight, then again early afternoon and sometimes again before bed- The S3 goes all day on one charge!

The battery life on GPS is also vastly inproved – I can now map a whole day out and still have 40% charge instead of the phone dying mid ride.

One of the reasons I got the S3 not a One X is the SD card slot and changeable battery – the One X has neither.

Other than that…they’re both Android, and you can read about the differences…not a lot in it TBH.

From reading the title I’d have said Inners…

Failing that Mabie – the first descent in particular is great, easy to loop round for another runn, too.

IME: Newcastleton – good but short
Mabie: Good bang for buck – not as “monster” as Glentress or Inners, but some great sections, one of my favourite trail centres
Kirroughtree – Goes from easy blue to very techy red with nothing in between
Ae – excellent sections, but the descents are too short – lots of them, just not strung together
Inners – bitch of a long climb, cracking descent – Love it 😉
Glentress – Bits of everything, again great and can be joined to Inners for a monster day
Glentrool – not been as no advertised red or black routes
Drumlanrig (not one of the Stanes, but same area) – good but a bit too much like riding in the South of England to go all the way up North for – Flowy singletrack hillsides (rather than mountainsides) in mud!

I have a full set of Titan car seat covers – bought them to replace the previous Halfords ones…chalk & cheese!

They’re extremely well made, fit well and do the job perfectly – go for it!

Given some of the gradients out of the coastal villages, even on a road ride, you might be grateful for the lower gears on a mountain bike!

Tickets for me & the other half at the Mens…

Really looking forward to it!

At 6’2″ with longish legs and 17 stone, I’m pretty hard on seat posts. I’ve bent Thomson & Race Face posts, and snapped a Hope Eternity.

I’ve got 2 Blackspire posts, one of which is at least 10 years old & still straight and strong. I’ve had to replace the mounting hardware once but that’s all.

I’ve got a fair bit of Blackspire kit (Seatposts, bars, cranks, chainrings), and it’s all proved much tougher than the more mainstream choices.

@trail_rat I did extend the breathers! My point was that in stock form, there’s more to worry about than whether or not the engine’s running when you get to the other side of the puddle…

@matt_outandabout I’ve been through deeper today getting around Kent… You can bet the manufacturers spec for most ordinary cars isn’t much, though.

The rule of thumb for cars is the bottom of the wheel rim, 4 x 4’s the top of the rim.

You may get away with more, you may carry on running, but there are other factors than sudden failure to consider.

On my Mitsubishi, for example, there are breather pipes for the front and rear differentials – the front one was piped to the very rear / top of the engine bay. The rear, however, was only piped as far as one of the chassis crossmembers, that was open in the rear wheel arch – so in about 18 inches of water you’d fill the diff with water!

I don’t get noticeably smothered in 2-stroke fumes from my Stihl…

Indeed there is no compatiblity on SRAM/Shimano rear shifting components apart from one which is a SRAM Rocket shifter with a shimano mech.

Or Sram Attack…

I was surprised at how little extra to get a Stihl instead of a “cheaper” brand – Cheap ones for £90, Stihl at £155. Factor in availability of parts and servicing…

I bought a Stihl and have been very pleased with it so far.

Only had it a few weeks, so not much more to say, it’s easy to start and cuts stuff!

If you’ve got time and energy you could do both…

The last couple of time I’ve been with my other half (neither of us are fast), we’ve done both.

Either park at GT, cycle along the road to Inners, ride the XC there, ride back to GT ride there, shower, home…

Very doable!

Sea Kayaking? We went out with Sea Freedom[/url] a couple of years ago – excellent!

Get lock on shorties, designed for using with gripshift…

They’re just not the same under Sports Direct ownership…

Thanks for replying Ambrose.

Poor internet connection on the campsite prevented me from replying, although I saw your post yesterday.

As it happens We didn’t get there in the end…

Tacho only required if gross train weight exceeds 3.5 tonnes and for hire or reward.

That’s one of the reasons I didn’t buy a standard Ifor Williams – for the same capacity as mine they’re over 1 tonne unladen, 3.5 tonnes gross!

I’ve been thinking of selling my trailer, just not done anything with it as yet….

600kg unladen, 1350kg mgw. Easily holds 10 bikes and kit.

Drop me an email for more info if you’re interested. alaricdarmon@gmail.com

They do a few nice pints! My favourite is “Late Red”…I do only live a few miles from the brewery….

I’m 6’2 with fairly long legs, and weigh 120kg.

Since I can’t afford a custom frame, even the biggest stock frames need a 400mm+ seatpost to get the saddle in the right place.

That’s a lot of leverage and a good test of a seatpost.

I’ve just snapped an Eternity, 27.2. Hope replaced it under warranty but only with a 350mm – when I queried it they said they’d had problems with 400mm at the smaller diameter, so have discontinued it…

Blackspire have it right, though…

I’ve bent Thomson!

Try Blackspire. One of mine is 6 or 7 years old and still perfectly straight.

Stop trying to go fast.

Work on technique instead, particularly cornering. As you start to get it right you’ll get smoother. Get smoother you’ll get faster!

Try the Blackburn Mountain bottle cage.CRC

Not especially pretty, just functional, but holds the bottle very securely, and designed specifically for off road riding.

New build, only got it a couple of weeks ago, had a few decent rides now and very impressed…

Get the mounts faced first. If they’re out you can try as many other solutions as you like and it won’t help.

After that, clean the rotors, check or replace the pads and align the caliper.

Oh, and make sure all the rotor and caliper bolts are tight.

Life Jackets float you on your back with support under the neck to keep the airway open, and will go a long way to keeping an unconscious casualty alive.

PFD/Bouyancy Aid is just that, helps you to float. For a concious casualty they’re a lot easier to move around in in the water.

On the original question…all good advice above, also worth finding your local club, get a bit of tuition and a come and try it before spending a load of money!

For dedicated Sat Nav, I’ve use both TT & Garmin, and much prefer the Garmin – I find the mapping much clearer, & you can change the zoom level permanently, unlike the TT which reverts to it’s preset level after a short period.

If you have an Android phone check out Co-Pilot in the market. Similar to Garmin, also does multi stop planning and a few other things!

Singletrack? Download / Install the kindle app, download the kindle version of the mag, then move the downloaded file to the Kindle folder. Open Kindle, should show up in “On device”

My company can probably help, not sure on charges as that’s not my department.

Drop me an email of you want me to get a price alaricdarmon at gmail dot com

Ignoring personal preference (which is of course a large factor), the target rebound speed will be the same regardless of rider weight.

However, if the fork/shock is set up correctly for rider weight, a fork for a heavier rider will have a higher spring rate and require more rebound damping to achieve the same rebound speed as that for a smaller rider…

HTH (and makes sense…)

You won’t need a PSV, but you will need to check the gross weight and your licence entitlement.

If you don’t have any additional qualifications and passed your test after 1997 you can only drive up to 3.5tonnes gross weight – this equates to a standard Transit or similar.

If you passed before 1997 you can drive up to 7.5t gross weight. Some buses may be below 7.5, a lot are significantly more.

I think you can have the vehicle reclassified by the DVLA to below 7.5t, so long as the unladen weight + everything you want to carry will be below this threshold…

Some of my friends have done the same thing. Drop me an email and I’ll see if they can give you a few pointers.

alaricdarmon@gmail.com

I have a Maxxraxx 4 bike carrier that I’d like to sell – drop me a email if you’re interested. alaricdarmon@gmail.com

I’m in Kent, but since I work for a transport company I might be able to arrange delivery elsewhere…

It’s the 4×4 version and needs a conventional style tow ball (2 bolt mount) to attach the mounting plate.

I’ve driven a Navara quite a lot, it’s a similar overall size to my 90 series Land Cruiser, and for all round use I’d choose the LC every time. Bikes locked safely in the boot, good ride, permanent 4wd, similar fuel consumption to the Navara on a run despite being petrol, option of 8 seats or seats down for 2 fully assembled bikes, 3rd row seats out and 4 bikes in the boot with just the wheels out, and comfortable seating for 4/5 of us to go to Wales.

As I said you can work around the limitation of the pick up, and there are times when they’re perfect, but for all round duties probably not the best alternative.

Problem with pick ups for use as a normal car is they’re not designed to be used as a normal car…

The back end is sprung to deal with a pallet of bricks, without said bricks they’re not terribly comfortable.

They also tend to be a bit tail happy due to the lack of weight over the rear wheels.

The 4wd system in most (all?) pick ups can’t be used on firm surfaces, so you can’t use it as a precaution in unpredictable conditions (no centre differential).

Load capacity is great for pallets of bricks, not so good for long loads (I’m guessing you’re looking at a crew cab), as you can’t fold the seats down as you would in an estate.

Not to say they can’t work, but there are quite a few drawbacks to consider.