my brother is an army medic and was in afghanistan last year. I watched the program with a particular interest in seeing the kind of guys he has saved. I thought the show was well made, and it was indeed very impressive to see the attitude of so many of the wounded guys. The tennis match left me speechless.

You lot should try the belgian second hand market. If something cost 1000euro 10 years ago, but they've 'looked after' it, they still want at least 900euro back. Crazy I tell you!

I've ridden the Med end on the Spanish side, based in Empuriabrava. Not much marked stuff at the very end, though you can certainly put together some nice routes. Inland a bit are a number of BTT centres with marked routes (xc). If you're interested in the Spanish side I could try and find the route maps.

placebo effect

It was the off camber rock in the wet that did it! The only really exposed bit for miles around… We didn't ride it properly again after that. There are plenty of other excellent bits in Sainte Foy without 100m drops.

kramer – I was indeed. Very glad that Stevo had rope gear!

does falling 80-odd metres down the side of a mountain then still being ridden (in the alps) for the rest of the week count as a thrashing?

for the OP –

don't wait for going to the docs. If it is a decent sized haematoma and it clots it will be a damn sight harder to get dealt with.

Even if it is a haematoma, you could be lucky and it will dissolve itself. I had a secondary haematoma after my surgery which luckily did this. I really didn't want a fifth operation in a week.

An ultrasound scan confirms any diagnosis.

too fresh on fotopic to post directly, but anyone who wants to see gory pics of just what a dead leg can produce can look here:

http://moregeoffwarnock.fotopic.net/c1753602_1.html

turboferret, as I understand it's only a haematoma when the blood is trapped in a pocket internally. I guess yours would be the bruise of all bruises.

Crispin, I had the misfortune of having just about the biggest haematoma my docs had ever seen… 22x8x3 as I remember. Funnily enough I never had a visible bruise, it was completely trapped under my thigh muscle, and all clotted by the time I went to hospital. They drained it in a first little surgery, but made it bleed again. They reckon I lost nearly a litre and a half back into it and had the emergency surgery in the middle of the night because of the compartment syndrome it caused. Not an experience I'm in a hurry to repeat. If anyone fancies some gore I can post pics…

crispin I know your pain. I spent more than a week in hospital thanks to a rugby-induced haematoma this year. Awesome scar on my thigh from the emergency fasciotomy to drain it (a second time after the first surgery set off the bleeding again).

the single slippiest off-camber rock on the one 5m stretch of tree free mountain in the alps a few weeks ago = bike bouncing 70-80m down a few cliffs… cue an abseiling trip to get it back (mucho thanks to Stevo from The White Room)

still a bit dubious… maybe I'm blessed with a very straight foot position, but I reckon you'd have to be quite bandy legged and/or not have stiff soled shoes to suffer.

where are you people trying to put your feet then if V12s are 'too small'?

I've got big and wide feet…. wouldn't call the DMRs too small. I'd expect to be clouting any bigger pedals off the ground even more.

I must say I do like the look of the super narrow Canfield ones in the eurobike reviews.

I didn't get on at all with the 50/50s despite good shoes and all the good opinions of the pedals.

Classic DMR V12s for me.

can see them now!

you forgot the photos…

stem looks a bit short for good uphill performance

One problem seems to be the media leaping on things like this and blowing it out of proportion.

Small sample size etc. is quite alright for a first study, so shame the media has made out like it's definitive truth.

Even the placebo may not be such an issue if the subjects weren't told that it was about beetroot juice. Does seem like an odd choice of placebo given that the difference in so obvious and colour isn't terribly important. Then again is there anything that tastes remotely like beetroot juice?

read your post too quickly i think Mr Ag, took it to mean that you'd seen who funded it and were calling it pseudoscience. I can't get enough info at the moment to call it either way. May have a proper look at the paper at work tomorrow.

in a similar vein to the bb facing thread – how is the facig of the icsg mounts supposed to be so crucial for this?

If the bb straight, and the gears are actually in the crank piece, isn't the inner plate a glorified bash guard? Or does the geared part also attach to it so that the planetary gears work?

"How does who funded it affect the outcome?"

That's exactly what Mr AGreeable is shouting about. I want to know where he's found the info as google/PubMed/J App Phys isn't directly giving that info. (don't have acces to the full paper at home).

As an academic scientist myself, I'm well aware of the many claims that funding affects the outcome (i.e. test with a big pharma company's new drug is funded by them and is positive outcome, lots of shouting that the scientists wouldn't upset their sponsor by reporting negatively).

In the case of beetroot juice however the only likely sponsors I can think of are the National Agriculture lot, or a company that sells beetroot juice. Neither are likely to have the pull of a big pharma company to 'influence' results.

still not clear on who funded the research. Who is this arch-evil company?

come on then, who funded it?

mr barnes, reduced oxygen uptake in the muscles could easily mean reduced oxygen demand, therefore for every breath of air (i.e. oxygen source) you need 16% less for the same work in the muscles

I just don't want to drink beetroot juice. Wouldn't mind an improvement in biking though…

thanks guy, will give a go at some point

will see about new fittings then, but i got the impression from the manual that the caliper end was a permanent fitting so shouldn't be cut off…

on the matter of bleeding, I can muster up my own bleed kit easily enough i think, but can anyone who has one post a photo with scale or tell me more about the fitting to plug into the reservoir?

Cheers

great pics, really nice

maybe just marks from being clamped for machining?

The pics in the OP look like finally a piece of trail justifying 5 and 6 inch 'all-mountain' bikes. Makes me wish I had something like that near me!

started on 12 grand/year with inflation clause for subsequent years. that was industrially sponsored. the 12 grand starter rate was about 7 years ago now.

heard a few times that starting post-doc pay can be disappointing if you had a good stipend. luckily I seem to have done ok.

used an 05 rock springs with a totem without dying in the alps a couple of weeks ago. great for downhill though somewhat sluggish uphill…

i was also a bit worried, but the way i see is that downhill frames even not many years ago didn't have gussets or huge headtubes/welds, and people survived. I'm not kyle strait so I doubt if the stress is anywhere near the (almost certainly overbuilt) spec of the frame.

Cynic-al also quoted something from MBA in another thread which reckoned that fork length wasn't really the issue, just whether you start hucking like crazy because of your new fork.

nobody feeling helpful?

Thanks guys. I've ordered (the last) sq. taper UN54 for e-type from Wiggle. I may try and stock pile a couple if I can find them

On a diffrent note, make sure the haematoma gets checked out and dealt with properly. I recently had 4 ops in a week and spent much of that week with my thigh hnging open from hip to knee to deal with an (admittedly very very) large haematoma. Expect an ultrasound to see it and assess the size and maybe a small op to drain it. From my own experience though I would say at all costs avoid an epidural for the op, as thanks to that I had no idea of the rebleeding they caused which was the source of my bigger problems. Cracking scar left over though, but then I'm not a woman to worry about that sort of thing.

G, clever elaborate troll well executed! Or can you indeed produce a (realistic) pic of said fine?

maybe try spraying some spray adhesive before the velox tape?

i wouldn't mind one for riding in the pyrennees/alps when you don't know how long the downhill is or what it will be like. It's an arse stopping to drop your saddle only to find the track just goes round the corner then uphill again!