The lower cliff descent is awesome

Is that the bit across the train tracks/road?
If so, I agree. You can properly hit all of the jumps/drops with a degree of abandon. More like this please cannock! 😀

a male hen

LOL

FtD is 7 miles
Monkey is also 7 miles

Crikey. It must have been that FTD just felt a lot longer.
So the monkey climb is ~10 minutes, personally I don’t tend to time myself.

Monkey is far from ‘flat’ (Dog is flat, Monkey has a fair bit of elevation

Depends on your definition of “fair bit”. The climb before the nice swoopy bit takes 10-15 mins? I did like monkey though, just needs to be 4 or 5 times longer!
The majority of the trail is follow the dog though and I found it a little boring (no offence to regulars). Maybe I’m a bit spoilt!

Good facilities, flat course. My advice would be to do as many laps of the monkey trail bit as you can. Follow the dog isn’t the most exciting trail IMO.

Ah sorry. Personally I’d say save some pennies and get something you really want. Anything else is just making do. Keep your eyes open and there’s always something nice on one of the many classifieds. Those quakes are big heavy FR/DH type bikes.

I thought you had that lovely ventana?
Don’t do something you’ll regret!

You are a long time dead…

Too right. My grandfather died recently and it made me realise that when it all ends all you get is a box and some flowers.
Life is the prize so enjoy it all you can and if that means spending money then do it.

Subjective.
Different strokes for different folks but I love my Knolly Endorphin.
Not saying it’s the best. It’s just the best for me.

Unlikely TBH
Best place to ask would be in here*;
http://www.britishpubguide.com/cgi-bin/pubsearch.cgi?results:Bristol:22
I’m sure they’d be happy to help.

* Do NOT ask in here.
Great pint of thatchers traditional though.

Yeah because a new cafe is going to attract an 200,000 visitors a year 🙄

I’m not saying that the development is all about MTBers, I was suggesting that the most revenue would come from MTBers, hence the bike shop rather than, say an outdoors shop.
More trails = more MTBers = more revenue. Shirley.

Sounds like she needs you, lexie so hopefully you’ll be safe. Maybe you could BCC some directors into some emails? Swap bins when she’s not looking?

A new cafe was well overdue IMO.

£9M worth of cafe?* Wouldn’t you like to see a new trail or two?

*I know it’s not just a cafe. It has a bike shop and “exhibition” centre too.

I agree that the priorities are wrong but you can’t say there’s nothing being down with the trails. I wish there was more, but then, I always will.

I think that’s what he’s getting at nw. Imagine having another 2, 3 or 4 great trails there. More people would travel from all over and provide more income for the FC. GT would cement itself as the premier MTB centre, there’s going to be a lot of competition from the welsh ones what with all the moneys they have for trails now. Not looking to argue, just a different angle to look at.

The peel centre is more than just a cafe and shop

Fair enough, but who do we think will provide the majority of the income from the building?
I’d dare to say MTBers as the trails are so good. How many will use the “exhibition” space?
Interesting to see that the FC have built themselves a spangly new office building.

Very interesting thread. I think dazzlingboy has a point.
How many trails would £9M have got?
Even if the FC could have spent say £7-8M on high quality trails, £1-2M on a 4 or 3* visitor centre instead of an all singing and dancing 5*, I’d be heading up there as soon as the trails were complete.
As it stands, I’m not likely to head up as readily just because of a posh cafe. I’ll still go but will be more inclined to give more time to the other riding spots up there. All said and done, we go to these places to ride our bicycles. We can eat cake anywhere.
Feel for E&T but sometimes life gives us a s**t sandwich and we all have to take a bite.

My last ex was always skint, contributed nothing to the bills etc. Had so many jobs but it was always someone elses fault. I soon noticed that my money wasn’t going as far as usual. Turned out she had a prolific cocaine habit. I got rid sharpish (she was pretty nasty too). She got a key cut for my place and tried to continue stealing from me! I’ve not made that many good decisions but getting rid of that one was visionary. Now met the warmest, most generous and kind girl I’ve ever known and we are getting married in sept. Happy days.
Gotta kiss a lot of frogs before you meet a prince(ss),

chain device and hint of chain ring?

I’ve had the recent style XT and the recent deus.
I use a hope BB so cannot comment there but the deus felt nicer IMO. Certainly no less stiff. Not a lot in it so go with whichever you prefer. I would choose the deus personally.

Whites final decent is a bit more tech than zig zags (scalextrix like). Both great though. Neither are perfect (what is?) boring climbs on the wall, crappy boardwalk on whites. Overall whites is better and more challenging than the wall IMO.
W2 definately over any of skyline (inc july);fireroad downhills are unforgivable. Don’t miss out Cwmcarn if you’re going though.

I’ve had sintered superstars in my the ones for the whole winter no problems at all. Mainly riding in the welsh muck.

I don’t live in london but can I like Boris?
I have no idea if he’s any good or not he’s just such a (seemingly harmless) bafoon I can’t help but like him.
Although I don’t agree with all of his political ideals, I quite admire Tony Benn also.

Feeling for you, Tim. Chin up mate.

Only 1 for me. Lack of space you see.
I would love a Knolly delirium and an endorphin SL to go with my regular endorphin. Happy I would be.

I was toying between these and Formulas The One for ages.

I recently got the ones agter having the tech M4s.
The ones are considerably more powerful but the hopes have a nicer feel. I think that the hopes had enough power for me but the ones are quite a bit lighter. Difficult to call a winner, the hopes might edge it if only for the amazing customer support.

Well done tootall. You enter

Perhaps i should have released the brakes & hit them?

Yep.
I have never had a bell on my bike and never will. A few polite “excuse me”s is all anyone gets before I muscle through. The speed will be proportional to the amount of effort they are making to prevent my progress. I love to stop and chin-wag with riders, walkers, whoever. This kind of confrontational antagonism should be treated in such a way that they don’t try it again.

I got twenty6 levers on my the ones. Expensive to buy here but I mailed them direct as they had some left overs;
http://www.twenty6products.com/blog/
Tyler sent me some gold ones for $15!
Worth a try.
Oh, and I like them very much for single digit braking.

I ride afan regularly, that’s why I know about the 4x track. No google needed. Shirley you can see from the description how it could be misinterpreted?
BTW; what is the shrewsbury trail/route like? Never ridden there. Should I just google it?

Live somewhere else?

+1 I understand that north korea and cuba are nice this time of year. All happily working together for advancement of the species.

Brynn bettws isn’t part of afan argoed. Privately owned so not a part of the FC trails.

Do we really need to make life that simple these days?? An Enduro event on a 4x track…

I take it that you’re aware that the 4x track is seperate to the rest of the trails at afan?
Those of us who haven’t done these kind of events before do not know what to expect and go by the explanation on the website which was this;

The 2011 enduro will be based in the grounds of Brywn Betws 4X track

Jump off the high horse mate, with people skills and patience like that I’d be surprised if your skills guiding company gets much business.

How did that computer get put in front of you again ?

That’s no way to talk about kaesae

Steady on Loddrik, I’ve not denounced capitalism, I’m not quite middle aged nor middle class (I might be, I don’t really know what it means) and I don’t live in the home counties.
You’ll also really upset the communists who hide under the socialism banner that this forum seems to be blighted by.

Bit early to make assumptions IMO.
I’ll just wish mr saxena the best of luck. I’ve only ridden AC/LW twice. Didn’t like it but look forward to trying again after the work.

in 50 years we will look back and think “damn that Marx geezer had some good things to say”

I very much doubt it. I agree with the brick. In engineering terms capitalism is currently “hunting”; looking for system balance.

That’s good to know nasher, cheers! I’ll be entering for sure.

The 2011 enduro will be based in the grounds of Brywn Betws 4X track

Maybe a suggestion to reword the website?

What are the alternatives?