Am just soaking up the news and coming to terms with how short life Could be.

I hear you, it’s not a fun place to be 🙁 we can commiserate, drink, and fart a lot at the weekend while we muddle through and try to make sense of the shitty stick life has thrown at us! Still plenty of biking and fun to be had though, can guarantee you that 👍🏻

Sounds about right, thanks for checking, much appreciated.

Shame though, can’t find a medium on sale for love nor money, not in good condition at least 🙁

Please, that would be great, thanks 😊

Hmm, maybe going to pass on the dremmel!

Compared with my MTB, my CX bike setup has:
– slightly higher saddle height
– longer seated reach, and much more drop (to the hoods)
– shorter crank arms
– cleats further forward (feet further backward relative to pedal spindle)

I’d suggest you look at two things:
1. your saddle height
2. your saddle offset & cleat position

My thinking is you might be too far over or behind the pedals

Before I went to the fitter I marked up my seatpost and went through a process of moving it up/down 2mm at a time, the same with saddle back/forwards, only changing one thing at a time, with no joy. I then also shortened the cranks (originally 175 as on the mtb), which did alleviate a bit but not eliminate the issue, and started again with the seat height/position combinations. The fitter tried several combinations of fore/aft and saddle height changes by a few mm at a time with no joy either. He has sent me away with the ‘ideal’ fitting from a combinations of measurements and video footage/power metering. I’ve also tried three different stem lengths, 3 different hood positions (each time only changing by mm), and have tried around 10 different cleat positions, each time only changing by mm to try and alleviate, with no success. Ive also tried shims and wedges, even though Id been told I didnt need them previously, as I wanted to rule them out before shelling out on a bike fit.

Really have been through everything obvious after a LOT of research, I dont think its one of the ‘normal’ reasons, otherwise the bike fitter would have picked it up… I did go to a professional fitter, not a bike shop, and I trust he did everything correctly. Its a bit of a tricky one 🙁 Unless anyone can see something in the above I may have missed trying??

If the guy setting you up for CX has adopted a typical approach and you felt comfortable at the time (no back pain etc.) it could be you need to re-visit the fit with your new issue

I went for the set up specifically to address the knee pain in case Id set something up wrong, he went through as much as possible and I left him scratching his head as even on all the software recording there didnt seem to be anything that would normally result in knee pain. Id got the bike pretty much correct in set up terms as well before seeing him… 🙁

Just to expand on the ITB/Quads (and glutes stuff) Had a physio confirm my hips/knees/legs are fine and the ITB isnt a problem just before buying the bike, this area is the best hes seen on me in years thanks to a program of squats/lunges plus glute exercises and stretches over the last two years. I did have problems when I started a job that includes sitting down all day (the original MTB knee pain), but nothing he could see at the time. Could be a good idea to go back and get him to have another look though, as this knee pain is different to last time.

May follow up the sports massage therapy as well, I do have a good therapist that makes me wince and feel like swearing a lot…

Buttermere

Buttermere by Annabell Ison[/url], on Flickr

We got a mobile unit from a company in Germany, it uses both water and air con cooling, and is re-gassable, so not like the throw away ones you get in B&Q. Hubby then drilled into the dormer ceiling and fed through the exhaust pipe, so it vents into the ceiling space. Its great as the water part stops it drying out the room. Hubby sleeps happily with the noise, I just use earplugs. Get far more sleep with the small amount of noise, than trying to sleep on the third floor of a new build in summer!

Careful if you remove the bulkhead, best just doing from one side if you can (passenger). Its there for a reason, if you have an impact with no bulkhead, objects from the back can do you serious damage…

Sadly, not found much that helps with this either 🙁 You have my sympathy, sometimes just getting out for an easy bike ride helps make things less fuzzy, at least I dont feel like Ive wasted a day that way!

x2 for Ninfans army cot bed, theyre great. I bought a cheapo memory foam mattress topper to go on top of it, its amazingly comfy!

Vickypea: You need to take magnesium citrate to what’s called (excuse the grimness!) bowel tolerance, dosage is apparently individual. I started off with powder from capsules in 50 mg increases, and increased the dose until it gave me the runs, then took the dose back a bit to being normal again in the loo department! At first I needed around 500mg after a long spell of migraines, but that’s dropped and now find around 300mg is around my daily dosage. My tolerance can go up to around 400mg after a big bike ride, so I’ll have some extra after I’ve been sweating for 3-4 hours. That’s even with an electrolyte drink during/after, I seem to burn through it far too quickly! It does have the added bonus of being likely to help you sleep really, really well if you get the dosage right, lack of sleep is a big trigger for me, so it’s had a double benefit. If you’re low on magnesium it also stops you coping with stress as well as you might do. Stress activates your sympathetic nervous system (your fight or flight system), and your body uses up magnesium to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms you down. Possibly another reason it works for us migraineurs when we’re stressed out!

I have exactly this issue, I know how you feel!!! My problem is actually down to the migraines. Migraines can make you hypersensitive to pretty much everything (just like with the more common things like light, smell, sound), as a migraine can involve your nervous system becoming hypersensitised. Migraines can affect any part of your brain so can create any symptom (for example hemiplegic migraines create one sided paralysis!), pretty scary really! For me this has meant I become overly sensitive to medications as well. Even at a quarter dosage (2.5mg), Amatriptyline worked, but caused internal bleeding within 4 weeks of taking it, even at such a tiny dose. Nortryptiline did the same. Propranolol made everything 10x worse, and I get dizzy/woozy just taking paracetamol when I have a migraine. If Naproxen doesnt work to clear a migraine, I get dizzy and stomach pains as well, dont even start with co-codamol, gets me high as a kite 😉 However, if I take paracetamol, co-codamol or Naproxen when Im not having a migraine, they have no side effects. That should be a big indicator whether its the migraines causing you to be more sensitive to medications, not easy to figure out when you have them on a daily basis though!

Personally there are 3 things, much more natural than the drugs a GP/Neuro will throw at you, that have worked much better for me:

Magnesium citrate daily (proven to work for 50% of sufferers, higher than any prescription drug, but bizarrely not usually mentioned by Drs). Its a calcium channel blocker like a lot of the prescription meds, but with a fraction of the side effects, in fact if you get the dosage correct there should be none!

I had a shoulder injury that was causing massive tension in and around the neck/jaw, got that treated with steroid injections and physio, and wear a jaw guard at night to stop my teeth grinding.

5-HTP (serotonin)with vitamin B6. I actually took this out of desperation for travel sickness, as pretty much every time I got in hubbys car Id get travel sick, which would kick off a migraine. I found a research paper from a few years go that linked Migraine and travel sickness with low serotonin. Figured it was worth a try…very surprised to find it stopped both the travel sickness and the migraines!!

All three mean Ive gone from chronic daily migraines since October last year, to two a week with the Magnesium/Shoulder treatment, and then down to one in the last 6 weeks after taking the 5-HTP (hormonal so not much I could do about it!)

TBH its all fairly trial and error. The migraine society have lots of info on it, but as someone else said above may well be worth trying to get off all drugs to see if theyre causing more trouble than theyre worth. Certainly were for me, and Ive found the ‘gentler’ less traditional pharmaceutical route far more helpful.

Other things Ive tried with no success, but that are highly rated by other people:

Acupuncture
Co-enzyme Q10 with vitamin B1
Feverfew

Theres a really good support group on facebook (if youre on there) where a lot of people share whats worked for them – ok, some of it is waaaaay off the mark for weirdos stuff, but always interesting to see whats working for other people that you can try, along with articles and info – Chronic Migraine awareness UK & ROI group.

Just to let you know, other than doing scans (MRI etc) around the head and shoulders if they suspect a structural abnormality, all a neurologist will likely do is give you medication. Best person to see is a pain management specialist, as they look at more underlying issues, but sadly going through the NHS you need to have been seeing a neurologist for a long time first 🙁 My neuro missed the issues with my shoulders completely, and shrugged off the sensitivity I was showing for medications, just telling me migraines make some people more sensitive than others, and to just keep trying till I found one that suited me. Thankfully I saw a pain management specialist for something else (trapped nerve in the abdomen), and she kindly offered to look into them for me as I turning up to appointments with my daily migraines!

Good luck in finding something that works for you, you have my sympathy, Migraines are pretty soul destroying, even at low levels 🙁 feel free to drop me a mail if you want some support from a fellow MTB chick sufferer, email in profile 🙂 x

The levers are a bit stiff, they always will be. Best things I found setting both mine up was to get it in a place/on an angle that I found easy (or as easy as it gets with all the bits on the bar!) to get to. Does she have room to fit right next to the grips? Not sure which lever you got but they can go on either side, found mine easiest to access on the left hand/front shifter side as I’m less likely to be shifting at the same time that side. Makes it much easier to handle. I was also convinced my newer dropper on the Juliana was broken, turns out how easily the post goes down can depend where you have your weight. I need to keep weight back on the Julie as opposed to the Superlight due to geometry, if she has her weight over the wrong part of the saddle it may seem ‘tougher’ to press the lever (that was my perception!). Turns out if I put my weight back it felt ‘easier’ to operate as the seat was going down straight away, rather than struggling and having to hold the lever for longer because I was waiting for it to finally go down!

Chappy at uni got a bit frisky with a local, sweet but not so bright, lass from Manchester on a drunken night out. They did a lot of sweaty bumping and grinding in the club, before he went home with her.

As he gets home and begins snuggling between her bosoms he notices, even through the drunkeness, she smells a bit….’off’.

Anyways, he finally gets her bra off and two now very sweaty, sticky, and quite grim chicken breasts fall out the bra.

Hes now very confused and wanting to know WTF??? Turns out the new trend for boosting cleavage using ‘chicken fillets’ had been taken a little too literally by the poor lass. He made his excuses and left!

Wasnt sure who to be more embarrassed for! 😆

I have the 1.9tdi and it drives reasonably, can’t say I’d be happy with a 1.6, imagine it wouldn’t be well powered for a vehicle that size. Other than the usual stuff they have the ECU in a crappy place (along with other models of VW’s), right under the windscreen, so can have ECU issues when it rains/you wash it if your buying one a few years old. Had this first week I bought mine, we have since mummified the damn thing to damp proof it and no trouble since. Biggest issue I’ve really had is fighting years of neglect from the previous owner doing dodgy repairs. If you are buying second hand, as most of them have been work vehicles people don’t always care for very well, this seems to be something to take into account when buying. Otherwise absolutely love it, chuck bikes and dogs in happily, and can sleep in it comfortably with the bike in too 🙂

My relationship with the hubby and spending is perfect. I wanted a new bike, but eyebrows were briefly raised at the price of said carbon loveliness.

Solution?

Convinced him he needed something equally lovely and carbon orientated in his life 😆

Chris85: I ended up severely ill (and really only just getting over it 3 years later) after 6 months on PPI’s dropped my B12 levels dangerously low. It’s likely they were on the way down anyway, but they accelerated the drop massively, to the point of full blown pernicious aneamia, not fun. My folic acid was also very low, and turns out I also had low magnesium that was triggering migraines. All because I’d been told I had acid reflux and had been on and off the PPI’s for the last 17 years, which never helped, as it turns out I had low stomach acid not high acid. They can also mask the symptoms of stomach cancer, so really should only be taken if absolutely necessary, I do find it disturbing how readily they’re handed out like sweeties by my GP’s.

If its for getting off auto, find a local who’s doing one day courses where you have maybe 6 – 8 people max. You should learn all you need to know to start getting the images you want. We have a local chap that does a number (South Leicester based): Beginner, Intermediate, macro, flash, portraits, night, birds, big cats etc.

If you’re more experienced and its a particular genre you’re after look for workshops – especially residential if you can afford it. For example for Landscapes someone like Light and Land have a number of courses from 1 day to weeks away. A lot of good pro photographers will run workshops and you can book on their websites. Even better if you can afford a 1:1 day, you learn a significant amount!

Not long back from 10 days with Joe Cornish & David Ward, learned a stupid amount in that time. They also know good locations to take you to for inspiration.

Having been on (I went as a friend wanted to go) one of the groupon things, we found there were 40 people, some with iPhones through to high end DSLR’s. Avoid big groups like this like the plague, if you are looking at groupon check how many participants there will be and what the course structure is!

Chase apple gin. Cant stand the stuff but have it on highest gin drinking authority its pretty good! Only single estate gin in the UK, whatever that means 😉

http://chasedistillery.co.uk/gin/

Another vote for Derbyshire, plenty in terms of outdoors to go at with local trails and easy peak access, as well as within 2 hours of the smoke, depending on what time of day you travel of course!

To those that have suggested moving them, if theyre frail I can imagine uprooting them may not be the best option, unless they really want to go and have expressed this. My not so frail parents in their 70’s moved earlier in the year, and they struggled to recover physically & mentally for months. You dont expect it, but is does have a considerable effect at that time of life.

Another vote here for Indorex or Acclaim sprays, both work very well from experience.

As its not been mentioned you can buy a short acting treatment called capstar, its amazing stuff, and what kennels often give animals that come in with fleas. It kills every flea on the animal over a short period, but sadly doesnt last longer than 24 hours. The mass flea genocide debris it generated from one cat was unbelieveable, considering we had been using spot treatments/collars/combing and were only seeing the odd few when we did.

We did the following to eliminate an infestation we couldnt get rid of previously: Spray a small area of the house to kill any live fleas or eggs, youll want to confine the mog to this area next (we used the en-suite).

Give the capstar and lock the cat in the sprayed area for a good few hours.

While the cats locked in the area spray the rest of the house to kill anything thats left. Means all the fleas on it are now dead, and no live fleas are left in the house.

Use a spot on treatment like Advocate as you let the at out of its prison, so any eggs left on the cat cant hatch due to the spray/spot treatment.

Never had a problem since 🙂

We hired a campervan in San Fran and then booked into campsites, as others have said check well in advance as even in October we struggled to get camping spaces. It worked out cheaper than the lodges/hotels, have fun 😀

Mist and Millstones by Annabell Ison[/url], on Flickr

Theyre American, based in New York, so anything they sell is classed as a grey import. Only marginally better than getting from China. No UK Nikon guarantee, and you can never part ex/trade it in. Have also heard they use aggressive selling during aftersales.

As above look at the likes of MPB photographic, Wex and London Camera exchange for second hand. Even better if you can find an ex demo (did this for my D610 and saved loads for a camera that looked like it had never left the box!) as well 🙂

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase porking…. 😆

These guys on owners direct, in Pickering:

http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/accommodation/p8128743

Have secure bike storage in a large shed, owners are very hospitable, and understanding of groups/bikers. Price doesnt reflect how tidy the cottages are inside!

Cat needs to improve its aim, ours would have it in the shoe, not just on it 😉

(Not a Dr but having spent a lot of my life on these things…) I find the same after lots of antibiotics. Give it a couple of days of rest, they can be pretty strong medications, and LOTS of probiotics (yoghurts/drinks etc) to try and get some balance back in your insides. If they were strong painkillers after 7 weeks you may be having some slight withdrawal symptoms, especially if youre feeling a bit shakey, find this goes after a couple of days too. Hope you feel better soon!

I switched to 27.5 recently as well, after much procrastination about wheel size. It does feel different to me, but expect a lot of that is down to frame geometry as others have said. I do find I feel they need a little more ‘push’ to get going (but this marginal) and once they are they certainly roll faster. I do feel they dont have as much ‘flickabilty’ fun factor as the 26 inch bikes I have, on the other hand Im riding much more aggressively on the 27.5 as it rolls more, and this has translated to additional confidence on the 26 inchers. I can say Im loving having both options, depending on what mood Im in and what kind of ride Im going for!

I think Mr Overshoot is my hero today seeing that!! Serious bike cave envy!!

I just convinced hubby I needed N+1 by influencing him to buy N+1 as well, so that S-1 wouldnt reasonably apply 😀

Along with skills practice de-conditioning might help. I used it to help get over a serious fear of falling after trashing my spine. Read about it in a climbing mag, was brilliant while I was in hospital 😉

You basically sit quietly and replay the memory of the incident that scared you silly in a safe environment, then change it – imagining it in black and white, sing the alphabet or nelly the elephant over the top of it, make everything red, or green, or orange, slow it down, speed it up, work it into a Benny Hill type scenario! Theory is the more you do it, the less scared you get of the memory/situation, and hopefully itll then translate to how you feel when actually cornering.

As for the best way to fall, learning to relax can help. Might sound odd, but the more relaxed you are when you fall off something the less you break. Its helped with years of falling off bikes and bits of rock. Unfortunately its now a natural reaction, and you need to do the opposite and tense up when you jump into water. See trashed spine above for results when you relax and dont tense when jumping into water lol! 😯

Our M&S buildings and contents worked out waaaaay cheaper than insuring the bikes separately, for the cover we needed we were looking at +£700 for the two bikes, and that doesnt cover the other 3 we have!!

Also covers the other stupidly expensive toys (cameras etc) we have knocking around. Worth it for peace of mind, couldnt afford to replace a lot of it in one go!!!

Another +1 for checking how much magnesium/electrolytes you’re getting. I was getting horrendous leg/foot cramps after around 2 hours riding, even with electrolyte drinks/ gels. Turns out it was low magnesium (found because I also started getting chronic migraines), the drinks & gels just simply didnt replenish what I was using.

I do occasionally now get foot cramps still, but find if I do some extra stretching in between rides it disappears.

Good luck figuring out what it is, sounds pretty painful!!

Mixed experiences TBH. Ian replied very quickly to emails, even late at night! We spent nearly £200 on kits, so a bit disappointing when one arrived damaged and he seemed blunt about not doing anything about it. In fairness, despite the damage it was fine, he just didnt do much to put the hubbys mind at rest when questioning whether it would be ok or not.

I don’t need a new bike, I love the hardtail and full suss I have, they’re so much fun. Test riding something new at the weekend regardless, because it’s carbon and priddy, and I want, want, want!!

I went from a golf to a caddy maxi and LOVE it, would not go back to a car, it’s so much more convenient with bikes & dogs. The caddys drive very much like a car, (ok, not like a performance car, but that’s not something I’m interested in personally) the hubby commutes over 100 miles a day comfortably in his.

Depends how much prep youre willing to put in, but even easy stuff can be healthy.

Gravy from the chilled isle in the supermarket (made with stock) goes well with your rice and chicken, all low fat and fairly healthy. Always get other people wanting my lunch when I heat that up in the office!

The freezer section has rice steam bags that have extra frozen veggies in over the tilda packets, or just add frozen mixed veg to the tilda ones?

Frittatas are easy to make and you can put a whole host of veggies/sweet potato/turkey mince in. Add trimmed bacon medallions cut very finely, gives you a great bacon & eggs start to the day without overloading on calories.

Home made egg fried rice is also easy, and much lower in calories than your take away equivalent, especially if you load it with chicken/veggies.

Another vote for Mammoth and the eastern Sierra around Bishop. Tough going the first few days due to altitude until you adjust 🙂