OK it won’t post my link for whatever reason but basically search for an app called ‘iPhiGéNie’ there you can get IGN maps for the whole of France (IGN is French OS), you can have them offline and you can create routes and upload your own files to it plus a million other functions, there’s even a full 3D map!

Pretty sure this is all you will need.

IGN map app

But you’re happy with yourself for trying right?

On both our vans (Peugot Expert 2001 and VW T5 2004) we’ve done it now and both had issues with seized bolts or not having the right tool or rusted components etc. Luckily none of the bolt heads were especially hard to get at. But then that is why you pay hundreds for a professional, they will know how to do it straight away, have the right tools and know what problems to expect and save you all the hassle.

If you have the time, patience or interest to do it yourself then of course you have saved yourself a load of money, have the satisfaction of learning something new and having done it yourself. Which is exactly why I did it myself, never really done anything with car mechanics before but there’s enough help and information out there on the internet to try yourself these days.

People rely on others to do so much for them these days and I find a huge satisfaction in learning to do things out of my comfort zone. But then as I mentioned, requires a certain patience and amount of time of course.

LOTS OF SPOILERS SO If YOU READ IT DON’T WINGE I SPOILED IT

Terrible, terrible film. So many things that didn’t make sense or went unexplained.

I kind of expected we would never find out what ‘it’ was so I can get over that even if it was pretty annoying to not have any hint of an explanation, except for some scenes of the wind blowing some leaves about.

There was never really any explanation as to why some people were immune to the suicide bit? They sort of alluded to them having mental problems but never confirmed. Then on top of that WHY was the english guy suddenly so much cleverer than the other baddies? Also why did he suddenly kill someone? I thought the point of them was that they wanted everyone to see?! But then at one point he just diverts from that and tried to kill someone.

But the thing that wound me up worst was the end! Here you go kids, go play with all the other kids.NO! They have never seen another person in their lives, let alone another kid, they don’t know how to play with other kids, they don’t know what to do. They are terrified of all these other people, how do they trust them, how do they know they are good people and not baddies?! And Oh OK, we’ll just live happily ever after in this random tiny blind asylum in the middle of the woods with loads (far too many) other people!

Nice idea, terrible film.

Lived in Grenoble for a couple of years and heard plenty of people using it, mostly other uni classmates using it to describe other friends sarcastically.

Either way I absolutely recommend getting one of these to help distribute the heat around the house, it would reduce the amount of wood you would use to feel the same warmth throughout the house. We got one and previously the living room (where stove is located) would be roasting and the bedroom would require a jumper, now we’ve put it on the stove and pointed it at the door to push the heat around the rest of the house and the whole house is comfortable in a t-shirt with only the stove on and no other heating. House is made of wood with zero insulation.

Here’s a bunch of links to segments on Strava that I would consider some of the best/fun/least slop sections of trail on the Hexhamshire Commons, take your pick and just get the OS map out to link them together in whatever way you fancy.

Heading North on west side of Blanchand Moor

Embley Fell towards Whitley Chapel

Technical little section just south of Whitley Chapel

The above three can link together in the order that I’ve written them.

Bolts Law west to east (just south of Blanchland)

Singletrack down to Edmundbyers from Edmundbyers Common

The above two can link together also in the order I’ve written them. Maybe park in Blanchland, take the road up to the west side of Bolt’s Law, then head east across Bolt’s Law followed by the singletrack segment all the way to Edmundbyers and back along the road beside Derwent Water to Blanchland. I’m from just round there and we do an annual Xmas eve ride each year, a few years ago we tried out that Bolt’s Law trail and I think it is my favourite section of trail up on the moors! Haven’t tried the Edmundbyers trail for a loooong time so not sure what that is like. You could always cut it shorter and head down that bit of bridleway marked over Buckshott Fell, although I’ve tried that so I’m not sure what it is like (satellite view seems to look like a shooters double track road).

leffeboy – not sure why I would be worried about what others post whether my username is a random one or my company one? There are a few others on here i’ve seen using their company name as their username so I don’t see why not.

Cougar – I will do!

Martin, I do indeed need my arse wiped.

Well I was hoping I wouldn’t have to close the account what with the forum history associated with this account, i’ve used it for about 10yrs (and more before the hack under another name). Not that there’s anything special about my history, more just that I have been an active user for years and you can see that from my profile therefore you all trust me! But maybe no one cares about that…?

Our company is unfortunately offering nothing sex related or rectum related but only boring old MTB holidays in Norway.

(Janus is actually a Norwegian wool clothing company just down the road from us)

Hey Adam, you could base yourself somewhere near Voss. Then you’ve got Sognfjord and Hardangerfjord not so far in either direction. Voss has a host of outdoor sports and guiding operators in different sports. Either hiking, rafting/kayaking both on the sea and river and then you’ve got Outdoor Norway who offer Cube bikes to rent.

I didn’t find any obvious way of contacting forum help but if there’s a better way than this please let me know and delete the post.

If it is transfers at your end then I guess I can’t help.

But transfers at this end is no problem, you just tell us when and we come get you! :)

Well thank you all, a lot of useful replied there and some things to think about.

Of course we’ve looked at a lot of other companies in Europe and what they do, Basque MTB being one of them! So a nice surprise to hear from you Doug. And then BearBack it sounds like you are also in the business although i’ve not come across your site, googling seems to show you’re in Whistler? Which may be why. Is that you guys?

I think through the conversation here you guys have come across the pros and cons that we had though about having a non-standard/inconsistent change over day. We would like to be as flexible as possible but if you start with Sat-Sat and then one week do a Fri-Fri it would mean loosing out on 2 weeks bookings at some point just to revert back to the Sat-Sat. Unless of course we offered some shorter trips in those catch-up weeks.

We also want to be as flexible as possible because as you say Doug we won’t be getting so many bookings in this first couple of years. But then the thought was if we did a non-standard change over day one week we immediately take up 2 weeks of potential booking options for other people booking. Making less options available to a probably already limited number of people wanting to book with us if you get what I mean.

It seems like we just need to be flexible for now and accommodate as many requests as possible even if it means having weeks where we are not full or some half weeks with no guests. But as someone mentioned and as we found out doing some test weeks this last summer, it is tiring trying to do everything yourself and you certainly appreciate some days off.

I’m off to make a page and price for a long-weekend tips on the website! Cheers for the help.

P.s. Doug, we’ll have to come visit you sometime and see how the pro’s do it ;)

To be honest you’re not far off! He’s almost tall enough to be a munro, giant of a man.

Cathro is a funny Scotsman who does commentary on the world cups and also has his own coaching business, he’s an ex world cuo racer himself.

He also makes rather entertaining videos of all things mountain bime these days. For example he made a 14 minute video about organising his tool box the other week so i think it would be right up you lot’s street ;)

Yes it does stay dry sometimes haha! He came over ‘post-season’ I suppose and there was the tail end of a storm coming through.

Bedmaker, i’ve never ridden up there despite having lived in Aberdeen for a 3 years for uni! The kind of stuff you pointed to in the video is so nice and we’re currently on the hunt for more of the same, spotted some good stuff towards the end of the season that we’ll have to try out once the snow has cleared. Most of the trails here aren’t quite suited for bikes so need a little clearing/digging/rock moving to make then good for riding so once we need to go back and fix them up a little first! Watch out for more videos of that next year ;)

Where in Scotland are you Bedmaker?

Thank you! But for next time how do I do it?

Also, where has the preview button for posts gone? That way I might have been able to test it works first but it seems to have disappeared recently…

Brilliant, how do you get a video to embed? I’ve done as it says to do on the ‘forum help’ page!

Otherwise here is a link to it for now, that one I know the shortcode works

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP-GwS4xI-o&t

That doggo looks like a cat

No worries, thank you anyway :). Those prices I found are from the Silverfish UK website who do stock all the spares needed for Mondraker frames, that will be the last resort I suppose. At least I know they’re available.

Bedfo – Thanks but they don’t seem to have the correct size/thread pitch that I need listed on the site. I’ll send them an email and see if they can do it anyway.

Crogthomas – Cheers, i’ll contact them and ask also!

Pjay – Not sure if you read the whole post?

Reggiegasket –  We’re just in the process of setting up a place if it interests you! Website should be up and running in the next week or two. :D

Rascal – You could always head up here too if you want to get out into the wilds away from all the others. Not as much uplifted stuff as the alps and Finale but the landscapes are pretty impressive!

Desperate Housewives! Used to love it and watched every. single. episode.

Don’t judge!

Bloody hell it was a typo! Advice is what I was asking for and thank you for all of it, I wasn’t expecting so many responses! I appreciate all the comments but I think, in typical fingers in the ears fashion, in the end it probably won’t change much from the middle of the 3. Some useful points in there regarding scalability and colours which i’ll take on board and I enjoyed the puns! (favourite has to be Fjord Escort) but as someone else said I think any bike parts in the logo are just cheesy, I don’t think a logo necessarily has to ‘say’ or show what the company does, most logos in the world don’t do that, but they are catchy and become synonymous with a brand. So no chainlinks or tyres i’m afraid.

Lets see… A couple of things to explain which people have mentioned a lot.

The name – we have registered the company as Any Excuse To Ride Norway with an ‘official’ shortened name of Ride Norway, so both will apply and in lots of instances we will only need to write Ride Norway. The name has come from the fact I have had a blog/website for years called Any Excuse To Ride which also has social media channels linked to it, we thought it would be sensible to continue that since we already have quite a following via the website, Facebook and Instagram all under the name of Any Excuse To Ride. So yes I already own the domain and social media handles.

The irony of lots of people saying it doesn’t look like Norway have anything to do with Norway is that it is actually a trace of the view straight out our kitchen window but never mind…

I’ve also thought about changing my username now that i’m going to be a business owner but i’m thinking that it is almost an advertisement in itself as it always seems to garner some attention! Hopefully enough of you will trust that i’m no anus in real life to book a holiday with us in the future anyway ;)

We didn’t really intend it to but once we got it to this point we kind of thought it looked similar to the vintage rail posters for places to visit in the UK… anyone?

Woop! I can post on this kind of thread now! Had a Mondraker for a few years and recently both me and my girlfriend have bought a matching pair of Swoops, we even had Joe out to deliver them himself, sort of.

We’re in the process of setting up an MTB guiding/holiday place in Norway and Joe/Starling have gotten on board to support us with bikes to guide on! Very exciting, especially as we’ve never started a business before, never owned steel bikes and never had a custom geometry bike.

We’re both about 5’11” tall so we both have about the same size, mine with 480mm reach and Klara’s with 450mm, then both with 64 degree head angles. There’s a mixture of Hope bits, Burgtec, Shimano and DVO components and we were able to select some custom colours ooo, dream bikes really, custom everything and we’re hoping they’ll last for plenty of years to come. Really loving riding them so far!

If you want more pics there are loads more on our Instagram pages

@_any_excuse_to_ride

@Klarahenny

We’re over in the UK for the next few weeks if anyone fancies a meet up for a ride?! Otherwise you’re welcome to come ride with us in Norway.

Tubes are tubes in my experience so just whatever is cheapest. 27.5 I guess is best so that they fit all wheel sizes

Haha don’t worry, as Justin said in the first post, really name is Will!

Haha I’ve actually been to Hell when it was frozen over! Used to live in Trondheim and it is just along the coast from there.

Trailrat – I try to get about a bit! ;) You’re welcome over if you ever get the chance.

Convert – we’re about 2hrs east of Bergen in a village called Kvanndal, it’s on the shore of Hardangerfjord. You’re welcome to stop by for a coffee or even spend the night in your van if you want, quite a lot of random tourists actually stop over in the lay-by just beside our house as it’s a good view (we’ve had some friends camp out in the boathouse the last few nights if you fancied that!). You could come in for a shower/use the toilet if you needed or maybe you have a fancy van with all the mod cons. If you have bikes with you I would be happy to show you a trail or two! Or we have a couple of road bikes you could borrow for a day and leave the van here.

If you do stop by we could maybe help a bit with driving advice and what to visit, Klara, my girlfriend is also from just north of Gothenburg so she might be able to suggest some stuff to visit there. I have to say that with all the guests that we get it often feels like people do wayyy too much driving and it would be better to just stay more in one place for a few days to enjoy it than spend hours and hours (days) driving all over the place.

Cheers Justin, glad you enjoyed it and lucky to get such good weather!!

….and i’m back on earth after the stress of the football!

Some great bikes in there, thanks for sharing! It definitely seems to be that black is the colour to go with yellow or orange!

Had a pair for a long time and they are bloody brilliant, I do all sorts of riding and a lot of hike-a-biking too. The fit is so much better than any other MTB shoe (at least flat pedal anyway), this is also the reason they are hard to get on but if you undo the laces properly they’re no problem to slide into. They really fit to your foot much better than 5:10 for example because they use a much more refined last when making the shoe, it is cheaper using a more ‘blocky’ last hence the bulkier skater style shoe from most MTB shoe companies. The support you get from them being a boot style is so much better than normal shoes, both for hiking and riding, and I can’t understand why more companies don’t make them like this.

Wear wise – The upper material will probably never wear out, it is kevlar and is showing no signs of wear at all. The only signs of wear are the sole starting to come away from the upper material where they meet, just a tiny bit but then I have to say mine has seen an awful lot of abuse! Soles will wear out slower than 5:10 as they’re harder but then they are thinner too. Which is another good point as they give you a nicer feel on the pedal.

Agree with Hoppy, they do stink after a while, because of the non ventilated/water resistant kevlar bit there’s not much airflow and do get pretty hot but then it is the UK… usually it is cold and mingin (except now, just ignore now). You can wash those inners pretty easy though.

I found with mine since you get the two sets of inner boots I would usually take both sets out with me in the car then wear which ever set appropriate for the ride and have the 2nd set as a sort of pair of slipper to chuck on when I finished the ride to get home/pub/shop/whatever.

Yes they’re working on new version, could be a clipped version as they’ve alluded to that before…

All in all I think they’re a fantastic shoe and while they might not be a 100% perfect they are certainly far better than your usual MTB shoe, I don’t know why more companies aren’t doing similar things!

Use this on the desktop/laptop as well – https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/carte and there is a free app in the same name however it doesn’t cash like Iphegenie does and has less features … but it is free.

Yes get yourself up the upper Coquet Valley for a day out (bikes or no bikes). There must be a country show or two on whilst your up if you want a good dose of localness, country life and sheep with lovely wool.

Being from Barrasford i’m going to suggest staying in the campsite at Bellingham just up the road, they have camping, bunkhouse and pretty sure they even have some of those wooden pod thingies.

Allenbanks and Plankey Mill could be a nice spot to visit and that new visitor centre along Hadrian’s Wall (what is it called?).

If you’re no expert there are plenty of presets you can find for free online, just download a selection and have a little library. I tend to just try a few on my photo and then find one I like then use it as a base and adjust it myself a little afterwards.

Also why the heck if your photo 80mb?!?! Just rinsed my DL allowance haha.

Looks like most of you missed the point but never mind

This is why it has changed

https://9to5google.com/2018/02/09/google-images-features-getty-deal/

If your budget is (very) flexible then I would recommend the Only Whats Necessary shoes a lot!

https://www.onlywhatsnecessary.com/fr01-features#overview

I have always ridden flat shoes and since using these wouldn’t use anything else! I love a good hike a bike so spend a lot of time riding but also ‘hiking’ in them. They are grippy enough on the bike but the tread at the front and rear give a lot of grip while hiking too. The high top, thing sole and snug fit give great support and the fact the inner boot thingy fits tight around your ankle means you never get any crap inside your shoe like you do with other shoes. The fact you get two inner boot thingies means they are good or travelling too, you can have one set in the shoes and keep the others as slippers for the evenings, then when one gets wet you swap them over and dry the others out.

I know it is way out your stated budget but I like them a lot so any chance to share the love ;)

I use instagram a lot and usually post photos from my camera, it is a Sony RX100. The best way i’ve found is to have a wifi SD card or wifi function on your camera to transfer to your phone.

I do like to edit photos in Lightroom and then usually end up using those to upload which I do via an app called Flume which unfortunately seems to be only available for Mac, you have to pay for it but I managed to sneak a free download when they had some promotion on.

Here’s my instagram if you fancy a look :) – _any_excuse_to_ride

So the reason for not wanting a trailer is that I live in Norway and (could be the same in the UK?) you need to MOT your trailer and register it here = moneys.

I know I won’t get a 8 bike one but I don’t think you read it all Gary, I would like to find a 6 bike one and find another way to carry the other 2, probably in the boot or on the roof. It would be a shame if it isn’t possible to mount them on vehicles over here but then the reason I asked was because I saw these guys using one on their van in Norway so it must be possible.? I’ll send them a message also but thought someone on here might know, especially since it would be cheaper to buy one in the UK than here!

Sweaman do you think it is more of a paint in the arse to use one of these than just having a trailer what with the faff to make them fit without scratching each other?