Raining buckets here with a slight touch of thunder & lightning, resorting to the occasional f5 on the red bull page to see if it’s up again.

Had one up here last night about 2 in the morning. First I really knew about it was the dog climbing in to bed to cuddle up as the thunder cracks had given him a fright!

Saw on a couple of weeks ago, back of the car was full (only 1 passenger, but the back was filled with our bikes). Doubt I’d have given him a lift anyway as he looked like a right grumpy git! Probably the first hitchhiker I’d seen in years too, like 5 at least.

Dislocated my hand and sprained my wrist just under a week ago. Super annoying (also gross having to pop bones back in place!) but healing up nicely – just lacking grip strength and got a bit of stiffness and tenderness in the wrist and hand. Got a grip/wrist strength trainer off of ebay for a couple of quid to help too.

Did you email the uk@canyon.com customer service email? I contacted them by email with 2 pretty minor issues with my new bike in March and they went well above what I would have expected to make it right. Guessing summer time may be a busier time for the customer service folk? There’s a canyon UK twitter account too – guessing a prod on that publicly would get the ball rolling quicker for you if you don’t get a response any time soon :)

Bought a set of 100% goggles and gloves from http://www.springsandthingscycles.co.uk/sale-c110/100-m8#m8:sort7 at the end of last year (xmas treat for myself) – ace goggles and seemed to be the cheapest I could find at the time, still seem pretty competetive on price. Can’t comment on delivery times as I ordered over holidays.

I tried a couple of the exercises in this article: http://www.vitalmtb.com/features/MTB-Strength-Training-The-Cure-for-Arm-Pump,70 helped a bit. Mostly the kettlebell ones where you hold them up and use the grip to hold them steady.

Wanted to try the Spank vibrocore bars which are supposed to reduce buzz on long descents slightly, but they’re always out of stock everywhere.

Also fond now that weather is getting better, riding heaps more descents has upped it a lot, but some really long descents can still give me a bit of arm pump and shaky leg syndrome! I was wondering if getting out on the bmx a bit would help with both.

I’m using the Woodend Barn folk in Banchory for mine later this year – food is always good there and the menus they can put on for a wedding is pretty good too :)

My gf had frozen some grapes once as a snack and was eating them, dropped one and the dog munched it. He loved it, possibly as it was frozen, so he got a few more. Decided to do a quick google (he was a bit over a year old at the time) and saw grapes were super bad for him – seemed ok but woke up in the middle of the night and I wasn’t quite quick enough to stop some explosive dog diarrhoea hitting the hallway carpet. Think I sacrificed a spatula and a dustpan in scooping it up (3am!) whilst trying not to spew. Lovely memories!

This and Shenmue 3 being announced have set my nostalgia meter buzzing. I think FF7 made my standard grade exams a fair bit harder than they had to be :D

My Canyon came with a 34t chainring up front on 1×11, previously had 32t on 1×10 (36t cassette). Just stuck with the 34t and tried to avoid the 2 smallest gears as much as possible to force my legs to like it. Like Suggsey I’m 17 stone kitted out.
According to Strava, the (steepest) hills I do on local trails are a category 3 (a bit under 700 feet in 2 miles) and I’m around 200/400 on the chart thing despite hating climbing up hills. The gearing/drivetrain shouldn’t make any difference, just persevere with the long slog climbs and it gets easier on the 1×11 :)

I just went to use it – worked fine on the ebay page but on paypal it gives an error code (regarding the discount code) and goes to charge me the full amount :(

Yeah. I might go out and double check though, and that all the bolts are tightened properly. Starting to think I should take photos before I do anything bike related now, handy reference point in case anything doesn’t go quite right after :?

I didn’t take the cassette off – the chain is touching where it goes around the first sprocket on the rear derailleur.

I take mine to an MOT only centre. They have no incentive to fail a car to create work for themselves as don’t do any other jobs. They won’t even recommend a garage to take it to. They are tough but fair and I like it that way.

Council MOT centres are good for that. Usually have to book a decent bit in advance though. Mine passed this year, but it’s only done 8000 miles in 4 years.

They said on facebook that subs would be refunded the remainder of their subscription and still get remaining issues. Did post the question on their fb page, but no response :|

Not entirely relevant to the topic, but had what I thought was a back pain flareup this winter. The culprit turned out to be my fluffy little dog, who was getting cold in the dog bed, and climbing into our bed in the middle of the night for warmth, shoving my spine/hips out of alignment with 14 kilos of cute dog.

Have you had an MRI on your spine? I had sciatica about 4 years ago – super bad to the point where on a couple of occasions I just had to fall over like a log to stop it hurting if I moved wrong. Combination of physio exercises, posture correction(eg sitting correcty when using a pc at work) MRI for diagnosis and an epidural injection (steroid/anti-inflammatory). The epidural took the swelling down between the sciatic nerve and bulging disc, allowing it to heal whilst the other stuff stopped it getting worse again.
Had a couple of minor flareups (if I keep on with yoga and exercise I’m fine, so only due to laziness!) but never anything as bad as when I had the sciatica full force. Pain level was way worse than other injuries like a broken ankle and ruptured knee ligaments :( Hope you get it sorted soon!

Weirdly, a guy in my rig lives down the street from me – he has 2 massive Audis in his drive, whereas we have 2 Fords. Only thing is our house is about twice as big as his, probably because we don’t pay a grand for 2 giant Audis every month. Also, I’ve noticed indicators come as an expensive optional upgrade on Audis in town, which is why none of them ever indicate :/

Places like Maggies Grill and the Boozy Cow have really nice food for a decent price. A fair amount of places are a bit of a rip, but if you get a spree book you can get nice discounts (usually one free main course) from most places.

I’ve lived here since uni, then left, then came back. It is a bit isolated in terms of bands/comedians/shows coming to town and the drive down to Edinburgh and Glasgow being a pain (the dual carriageway is a very dull drive, but the coastal road is nice). Crime rates are (or seem?) lower than central Scotland, and there’s plenty of biking in the area (nothing really in trail centre terms, but lots of nice hills and trails).
House prices in Aberdeen are a bit steep, but cheaper in the commuting towns outside Aberdeen. The city centre is nice enough but small. Wouldn’t fancy staying in Peterhead. Balmedie is nice enough, Hatton is nice (but tiny), Newburgh looks nice (but don’t know anyone who stays there) and Ellon is a decent sized town halfway between Peterhead and Aberdeen.

I wear a pair now; kinda guarantees my eyes won’t get teary at high speeds and cause me to blink out a contact lens. No fun at all when that happened to me last year wearing normal cycling glasses, maybe other folk have it the same? Having said that, yet to see another biker wearing goggles this year!

I was a bit surprised when I saw a fat bike in the front window of Halfords earlier today. I did kinda want to go in and ask for a shot.

Has anyone on here tried those Spank vibrocore bars filled with foam to reduce buzz going down bumpy trails which are supposed to reduce arm pump? Do they work as advertised (or close enough)?

My girlfriend used to work in procurement of care services for a local authority, part of which involved site visits and incident investigations. Sometimes she’d come home based on the worst places she saw, a few times she’d come home really happy that some places had been really good (innovative care for dementia sufferers rather than essentially locked in a room).
Scswis did all the inspections, pretty sure it’s not too hard to get a history of reports.

I’m quite bad for this. I’ll just pile stuff into a kit bag regardless of how much I’ll need, then leave a bit of space for whatever my partner can’t fit into her bag. Never used to do it though, think I need to buy a smaller bag!

I adopted my partner’s old Ka for about 8 months when she bought a Fiesta. Getting it up to speed was hard going on dual carriageways, and folding myself (6’3″) into was probably a comical sight, but it was fun to drive and it could fit my old Cotic BFe in the back with the wheels off!
My finest moment was buying a set of wooden garden chairs and table, getting it out Philip (that was his name!) and realising I’d buggered it up a little bit. With both front seats right forward everything fitted in, but I probably looked mental on the drive home, folded around he steering wheel to fit in.

I enjoyed it. Girlfriend really enjoyed it too, despite not wanting to go see it with me. Fun film, never felt bored watching it, was kind of surprised to see the low rotten tomatoes score when I looked the day after.

The amazon and JE James ones would be handy, but like stompweaver there’s something about paying £20 for a tiny clamp that puts me off.

That said, http://www.reverse-components.com/shop/en/REVERSE-Trigger-Klemme-for-SRAM-Dark-Blue-Trigger-Clamp-alloy-with-screw-11g comes in various colours which takes the sting out of it. Only I can’t seem to order off of that site.

Looking at ebay, I could get x7 shifters (so one mount and a spare in case it ever breaks) for a fraction of the cost of one new mount.

That would have been really handy (if a little pricey, £20 for 1), but they’re out of stock for the single adaptors :(

Was gonna start a new post but saw this; I want to fit a towbar to my 10 reg Focus, first quote I got was just shy of £400!

I’m thinking this is unrealistic looking at prices for fitting towbars to other cars – anyone had a towbar fitted to a focus (the model is just before it shifted to the current new shape)? I’m assuming there’s nothing particularly weird about my car that would make it more expensive to fit one on.

Going to look for a few more quotes (paranoid I’m being quoted an Aberdeen oil tax price), but it’s almost got me wanting to fit one myself and the whole point of paying someone was to avoid faffing about myself.

My new bike came with SRAM Guides, wasn’t 100% sure initially but have given them 3 rides to bed in. They’re not bad by any means, but compared to my old Zees I don’t have the same confidence in them.
Sadly, that means buying a new rear brake hose (new bike is longer than the old one) and a clamp for the SRAM gear shifter (it screws onto the brakes!) so it ends up costing me about £20 to put my old brakes on a new bike :/

The mattress is 3 years old, hoping it’s not that. I’ve not really started anything new that would add a different strain to my back.
Core muscle weakness might be part of it, pretty much the only muscle group I neglect to exercise. Another early morning issue is if I want to bow down to splash my face in the sink (with water, to wake up a bit I should add) I can’t help but put my hands on my knees for support – just feels like there’s no way my body will support that action on its own. Later in the day it’s not a problem.
Only other thought is as its winter, sometimes the dog (weighs about 14kg, so not exactly big) will sneak onto the bed when it’s cold to use us as hot water bottles, so might somehow be nudging me out of sleep position. But it’s not like every time I’ve woken up with the pup snoozing on me I’ve had the inflexibility problem.

I sing to my dog lots, most of the time without meaning to. No specific song though, his name (and many nicknames) and breed easily fit into most songs :)

I bought a set of goggles after my eyes decided they liked wind/airflow less than they used to. Eyes got teary in November and I blinked out a contact then almost cycled into a tree.
First time out with them tomorrow, wondering if I’ll get funny looks :?

Old bike was 32t up front with 11-36 on back. Up in Aberdeenshire for most of my riding and managed fine, but it’s not super steep here. Managed a few rides in the Cairngorms ok but struggled on long steep climbs but that’s mostly down to me not being the fittest and not enjoying pedalling uphill (rarely motivated to burn energy flying up a hill!).

New bike is X1 with a 34 tooth front chainring, so wondering how I’ll get on! Hoping my legs will just get stronger rather than I suddenly can’t make it up hills anymore :lol:

Cheers frogstomp; that helped the penny drop – I did not realise the little paddle was actually a paddle (for some weird reason I thought it looked like a plastic guard or a bit to rest your finger on for leverage changing gears :| )

Feel daft, but also chuffed that I see how it works, thanks guys!

Actually embarrassed by my own silliness now!

I feel so silly for asking, but thank you :D

Will see if knowing how the shifter works affects the potentially misaligned sprocket.

http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/sharkselfie.asp nah, just a bit of photoshoppery :)

I bought a set of goggles recently after an incident a couple of month ago when my eyes teared up and I half blinked out a contact lens. My eyes had been getting more tear-y in the latter half of last year and wasn’t sure if it was new prescription, or a different brand of lens, but always caused by the wind effect when going at a fair speed.
Would rather look a bit OTT with goggles than nearly plow into a tree because I was blinking like mad again :)