If you can sort a bike and someone to show you the ropes I’d recommend a day in Santa Cruz. The trails behind the University are excellent. You’ll need a guide though. And you can pretend to be a Lost Boy on the beach afterwards.

Specious – agreed. Was skeptical, but gave him a chance and he’s been… absolutely fine, TBH. Much like Lauren in that regard IMO. If he becomes more regular it’ll be interesting to see how he develops in the role. Remember George Lamb? I ended up loathing him by the end of his tenure at 6 Music…

This one looks interesting, too – and it’s cheap (relatively)

Cafflano Kompresso Review

@letmetalktomark – running fully rigid (the Swift was my old singlespeed a decade ago). Will consider a fork if my wrists complain, but so far I like the light front end. I’ll dig out a photo when I get a sec (and can figure out how to post them) 😁

Envious as I was of my wife’s new Cascade, I’ve just built up my mk1 Singular Swift as a gnarly gravel bike (I hereby trademark the “gnarvel” subcategory) It works beautifully. I suspect your Solaris will be fantastic :-)

My arse is considerably wider than yours, and SQlabs seem to change their saddle designs with regularity, but with those caveats in mind, here is my 2p

The sqlabs saddles definitely favour a certain type of rider – one who doesn’t move about too much in the saddle. They’re fairly flat saddles, and I think you’ll find them quite comfy in contrast to your Charge (which I also don’t get on with).

I can’t speak for the latest iteration of the 611, but I tested one of them a few years ago (a 611 and a 612 I think) and found them very comfortable, especially on long distance rides. Personally I found them better suited for road than MTB, at the time. If you’re at the chunkier end of the spectrum, weight limits weren’t particularly generous, and I’ve bent a couple of sq labs saddle rails without crashing them (I was at the upper end of the weight recommendations at the time, but I didn’t exceed them). The max weight for the 611 these days I think is 90kg. I can’t find the review on the site though, soz, but I mention the 612 here (which looks very similar to the modern 611 ones)

I’m actually testing the 60x ergowave for this here site at the moment, which I lik – it definitely encourages a slightly more forward seating position than I’m used to. The ‘shelves’ on it, for want of a better term, seem somewhat more pronounced than the ones on the 611 you’re considering, so that might not be as much of an issue.  I have absolutely no idea what makes one saddle (this one) ebike suitable and another one (the 611) not, mind you.

The Power comp I only bought recently as a bit of an experiment, and I *really* like it. I think it encourages (or forgives) a little more positional adjustment than the sq labs 60X, but it’s still a relatively flat saddle, in the overall scheme of things. Speccy suggest it’s a road saddle more than a mtb one I think on some of their marketing, but it works really nicely on the mtb. The stubbiness isn’t an issue either, even on longer climbs. The massive hole in the middle it something of an issue on wet days without mudguards though, if you’re adverse to a thoroughly moistened gooch.

Not sure if any of that will help, and everyone’s arses are different, but hey :-)

And if you want it higher handlebar, fit a higher rise stem….  And how much extra space for stuff do these actually provide once you take away the area of the join?  Can’t be much, and unlikely to be more than just fitting a wider bar…

If you’re running a short stem, then a higher-rise stem (if one is even available) ain’t going to raise things over much. It looks like there’ll be plenty of extra space for stuff, as even once you’ve taken the area of the join, you don’t have to account for the area the stem takes up. The bars look pretty interesting to me – and of course you don’t have to buy them if you don’t want to, Mr Grumpy Trousers.

“The problem being that a massive majority of MTB riders in the UK are ‘white guys’, so if the mag changes direction and tries to pull in non-white-guy readers then that first group might will stop reading your mag and the second group don’t bother because they were never there in the first place, which leaves you with no readers.”

No, they won’t. Are you suggesting most other riders lack sufficient empathy to be able to imagine themselves in someone else’s shoes? Reading about topics you have no direct experience of must be a struggle.

And at this stage, it’s not about pulling in ‘non-white guy readers’. It’s about educating the white guy readers about the other people who mountain bike – so that any potential new “non-white guy riders” feel a little bit more welcomed than they are at the moment by the more lunk-headed members of our collective. 

“I look forward to the article about how men only groups is helpful for mountain biking as a whole. I assume every lady reading the article knows at least someone who isn’t a lady.

See how silly it now sounds when you just switch the genders round. Perhaps I’m just lucky as about 1/3 of our group are ladies so don’t get the whole single gender thing”

Blimey. Well, the vast, vast majority of mountain bikers are men. There is far from parity wherever you go. The sport is widely recognised as masculine, and is filled with masculine tropes. Adrenaline, risk, rarrrr. These are all seen as ‘male’, yes even if women do them. There are many papers on this. I you really want to read them I’ll dig out some links. Getting women who don’t MTB to actually have a go means wading through a lot of common cultural tropes, which includes rad bikes, gnar, and massive air, and risk and all of that, and actually very little of the actual mountain biking that you and I do on a regular basis, involving hills, and adventure, and scenery – all the stuff that gravel is trying to successfully monopolise. Oh yeah, women are taking to greavel in droves! I wonder why? Women who mountain bike feel that they are riding in a male space, regardless of how *you* feel about it. They are interacting with it on male terms. They form their own social networks and prefer riding with other women rather than men, who, blindly or not, have difference social interactions and understandings.  This is all to our detriment. There is research on this too. I am actually involved in some of it.

It ‘sounds silly’ when you switch it round precisely BECAUSE this is such a male space. And you are male (I strongly suspect). Try substituting it with any other minority group and see if it sounds ridiculous. Women find riding with other women to be relaxing, and affirmative, and fun, and a bunch of other good stuff. Why is that a problem? If we could all learn from that, and then integrate it into mainstream MTB culture, isn’t that a good thing? Ask the very many female riders you know and see if they agree. from what I’ve gathered, a lot of them will.

Also, International Men’s Day is Nov 19th, before you ask.

Everyone is different, so.. this is a *really* tough question. I too like the Nukeproof Horizon, and I’m a big lad (193cm, 100kg or thereabouts, 150mm sit-bones width) so – I have used, and rate,  the Specialized Power Comp in 155 flavour, the flat Fabric road saddles in a wide and the Selle Italia SLR Boost Superflow something or other (Also £155). in fact most of the Specialized saddles in their widest width and with a decent channel seem to fit my arse.

I used to really rate the SQ Labs ones (the arse adjacent part is really comfy for me), but I’ve bent too many saddle rails on them. The carbon ones are still holding up well, but they’re ££££

I absolutely hate WTB and Charge Spoon ones. They just don’t fit me at all.

YMM, of course, hugely V

Sienkiewicz, Ezquerra. McMahon… Hewlett, Bond, Bolland, MacNeil, Ezquerra, of course. So, so many :-)  

I used to really love Bisley when I was a teenager but looking at his stuff now… I dunno. Doesn’t ring my chimes any more. 

tho there are so many I still love.

@mashr – OK, my mistake, SRAM ones don’t have a nipple either. The point of this review, though,  is that the TRP ones don’t, and this is not a positive.

@b33k34 – it’s the caliper part with a nipple that you unscrew a little with a spanner to allow the fluid to exit the caliper when bleeding. You attach a plastic hose to it. The photos up there show the caliper with the Shimano valve installed, as mentioned in the text. When you get the brakes they come with a cap, not a valve. Shimano and SRAM brakes come with the valve installed; you don’t need to buy it.

Don’t know about previous TRP brakes, @mashr, but these ones feel pretty good to me. Some of the best brakes I’ve used TBH.

For my part the AF Asahi is an excellent lager. The Brooklyn Brewery AF one is also pretty good and flavoursome.

Personally I can’t be doing with Nanny State – it’s undrinkably bitter to me. Punk AF isn’t too bad though.

Best one of all is by Brulo though – their 7 Hop 7 Grain and Lust for Life DDH IPAs are genuinely excellent IMO – I prefer them to many alcoholic beers.

GoatKarma – I don’t think I’ve ever found a saddle that didn’t bruise my arse after 15+ hours (thanks to a very brief foray into 24 hour racing 20 years ago)!  Might your chamois/chamois cream application also be a factor?

I like SQlabs saddles, form-wise, a lot, having had a number of – uh – downstairs issues in the past.  Although being over 100kg I have eventually managed to bend the rails on two, which is infuriating, as there’s no way to repair them. Also, the prices shooting up recently (can’t think why) really doesn’t help matters.

Get a therapist. A qualified clinical psychologist etc can really (I mean *really*) help with stuff like this. And for what it’s worth a lot of ‘mindfulness’ stuff can help too – a lot of it is backed by stringent academic research.

But critically, a therapist will help to determine which approach is best for you. CBT, for example, is very different to ACT in outlook, and some work well with one approach but not the others.

@blackflag – I *might’ve* done this from time to time (with a 27.5×2.8, so perhaps not as slack as you’re thinking) – works well. It’s fun in the corners; less good at climbing. YMMV :-)

The Swarf Contour is a superlative bike IMO – what’s the reason to change it up?

One of my teachers – a very long time ago – was of the very clear opinion that people who swore did so because they didn’t have the vocabulary to express themselves without swearing.
I think there is some truth in that.

Actually just the opposite: https://www.sciencealert.com/people-who-swearing-cursing-rude-words-better-vocabulary-science

It’s common (sadly not common anymore) courtesy. If more people said please and thank you the world would be a nicer place.

My kids and all their friends seem to be very polite, and ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are in regular use. There are, of course, exceptions, but I suspect it’s just as common (or as uncommon) as it was in ‘our day’ etc. I’m sure they swear like troopers when they’re on their own, but understanding context is more important than telling them not to swear, IMO. They’re going to learn from their peers anyway, but I’d much rather they knew that some words were worse than others, and that they weren’t inclined to use the F word in front of granny…

Chapaking  – in defence Daffy, there are great many reasons why subjective opinions aren’t considered scientific, as there are far too many confounding variables. Nothing is standardised. The riders aren’t blinded, so they wander into any assessment with their own expectations up and running. The trails will be different, or the conditions will be different, or the tyres, or the geometry, or whether the rider had a poo that morning, or or or. And then there’s the idea of what ‘better’ is in a given context anyway? Faster? Poppier? More fun? More gooderer at corners? What constitutes ‘more gooderer’ anyway?

It is *spectacularly* hard to remove any and all variables from this debate (which, of course, has been going on for decades). No, you’re not gullible fools – but you are human. The idea of ‘science’ is to try to remove the ‘human’ from the scenario. Something that an internet forum is somewhat crap at doing.

So should Benji orchestrate one really big crash, or just a series of lots of small crashes? Broken fingers, or just a few minor lacerations?

I wonder how you generally feel about helmet reviews…

R4 comedy-wise, as well as ISIHAC, I think John Finnimore’s Souvenir Programme is possibly the cleverest, funniest sketch show I’ve ever heard. I also quite like the Unbelievable Truth, compered by David ‘Ubiquitous’ Mitchell, and the recent Mark Watson standup thing (I forget what it was called)  was also good. It’s on Sounds at the mo tho.

There is a *lot* of dross though, but to be fair that goes for any and every media type there has ever been.

As long as there’s at least something for me I’m happy :-)

Those cranks (and to a lesser extent the rear mech) make it look like a Duplo Transmission to me :-)

Everything is covered in the article Hannah linked to up there :-)

In short, take all of the jelly babies. ALL OF THEM. All of the warm clothes, too, and in the morning, make sure you adequately refuel the sleep-deprived before spectacular tantrums ensue. Don’t bother with brushing teeth. Don’t forget a trowel, and make sure your prospective toilet isn’t in a stone floored quarry…

I nominate one most probably won’t have heard of but have seen their work all round – Fiveland Bikes.

Fiveland bikes isn’t actually a *brand*, per se – although I completely agree that as a company they’re knocking it out of the park (for those who don’t know, they make a load of stuff for Cotic and a few other brands too out of a big shed in Scotland).

For brand penetration over size (and generally Doing Things Right), I’d also echo Cotic for their activism as well as their brilliant bikes, Deviate for the lovely, lovely design (the linkage system is a genuine engineering masterpiece) as well as being really a rather small company – and for supporting the legendary Matt Fairbrother, and possibly Renthal for general Mancunian awesomeness.

The nerve itself can die off, but as long as there’s minimal scarring, it can track back along the myelin sheath and regrow. That’s not to say it *will* – and the more scarring there is the less likely it is to do so. Under ideal conditions peripheral nerves regrow at about the same speed as your fingernails, so it might take a while!

If you look at the edge of the fingers on the website photo, you can see the black fabric in between the fingers etc, which is def. a different colour to the backing. On the OP’s photo the two colours (in between and backing) are the same.
So personally I don’t think it’s a lighting issue.

As an alternative, if you get your money back and they still can’t help. perhaps you might find something in here? https://handupgloves.com/en-gb/collections/all-gloves

Thanks Rich! We’ll have to agree to disagree about Potato! Yeah, I’ve ridden Cut Gate a few times – a fabulous trail. I think a story about it (written by me) appeared once in Singletrack during lockdown – rode over it to Ladybower with some pals to see a Lancaster Bomber, which didn’t appear – so I packed my camera up just as a consolation Eurofighter screamed through. Didn’t get photos of that either :-D

@centrilpetal – Very chuffed you liked it – it’s a super-fun loop! You say you didn’t get to the Beast – but what did you think of Potato Alley?

There are slightly more bacteria in your body than there are cells (around 4 trillion bacteria vs around 3 trillion cells).

However, a really big poo can skew the number in your body’s favour…

Thanks folks – really means a lot :-)

.@gazzab1955 I suspect it’s probably something to do with the difference between forum postings which are cunningly hidden in – er – lots of other forum postings, and editorially sanctioned ejaculations that go up on the front page and are frantically spaffed about on social media.

I may well be wrong, though.

Spoiler alert, there’s been nothing new since grunge.

You sounds *just* like the fuddy duddies you’re railing against, but looking in the opposite direction :-) There’s plenty of new, (*new* new) guitar music, same as there’s plenty of new, exciting bleepy and bloopy stuff. Grunge wasn’t even remotely new, FWIW.

I’d also like to state that I’m in NO WAY an expert in this – I just mentioned the neuroscience bit because I happened to be sitting next to people that were :-)

TiRed – Ooh, I remember reading about the saliva thing. Antibacterial mouthwash completely mitigates the effects IIRC? Is there no endogenous nitrate reductase? The link you posted to suggest a tissue specific oxidation process somewhere.. or is that in non-human mammals?

I was pretty much at my limit at a pint daily when I did this, and as I said I had to drink it slowly. Just urgh!

There’s plenty of evidence online suggesting it may help you – good luck! Let us know how it goes!

Oh, and enjoy the rest of your holiday… :-)

Do some reading around first, I would – Pretty sure that you can have digestive – uh – side effects from all that NO too… Pretty sure I only had to drink it slowly as the precise mechanism of metabolism wasn’t well understood at the time – but all of that nitrate hitting your stomach at once might be *interesting* :-)

So. BITD I used to work as a neuroscientist at Leeds University. This would’ve been maybe 2009? One of my colleagues was looking at vagal nerve stimulation for a variety of things (well, she was mostly looking at sympathetic nerve activity). When the NO and beetroot juice thing first came out, I was recruited as an extremely early phase guinea pig to see if there might be something in it (there was just me, as I have high BP and was in the bay next to my colleague ;-)). It actually did something – lowered my BP reliably overt the 5 days I tried it. It’s was pretty quick.

There were caveats, however. I had to drink a *pint* of beetroot juice slowly, over amount an hour. If you don’t like beetroot juice, this is pretty hideous. I couldn’t just chug it.

HOWEVER – from the (brief) reading I’ve just done the NO enters your blood stream via some kind of “entero-salivary circulation” – Nitrate in the beets is absorbed in the small intestine, converted into nitrite and concentrated in the salivary glands – where it’s then swallowed , and the stomach acid converts it into nitric oxide. Pretty interesting!

Personally, I’d suggest trying it. check your BP/hr/etc at hourly intervals before and after using the supplements, and see what happens. If you can go to your GP with hard facts, then it’ll be harder for the to blow you off (so to speak)…

Benji is on holiday and I had to write it all myself, like old times.

Ahh, I remember those days ;-)

@relapsed_mandalorian – This is the way.

sorry.