Blimey. I’ll be in BSM from next Monday until the 5th aug. the funi is down but apparently there’s a replacement bus with bike trailers etc, so hopefully not too much of a hassle. My kids are 10 and 7, so we’ll also be exploring the greens and blues as well as sneaking off for some proper riding sometime… Happy to hook up for a bimble if I can 👍 FWIW I prefer the ridding around Les Arcs to the bike park at Val. It was a bit to moonscapey for me last time I was there. Fun tho.

Personally I’d suggest trying lots of different bikes to try to pin down what the issue might be. Attack the problem as if you’re looking for a new bike. I’d try demo bikes, borrow bikes from mates etc. Hard tail, FS, 29er, 27.5+, mullet, whatever. Try them all (or as many as you can!)  Also play around with what you’ve got.

A one-on-one skills day might yield some insights too.

For many, modern bikes provide increased confidence, stability etc. It was certainly the case for my wife, who came back to MTB after many years away, and found modern geometry (a Cotic FlareMax) enormously to her liking.

Best of luck to her anyhow! Hope she gets it sorted :-)

OP, would your username by chance be anything to do with the CPC6128 personal computer of yore? The one that we mere mortals, blessed only with a 464 with a green screen, could only dream of?

For road, the world’s your oyster – just be prepared for hills, and keep off the main road (as it’s horrible). Gravel-wise the trails can get a little chunky, but there’s plenty of doable track by the reservoirs around Cragg Vale, over towards Ripponden etc. Much of the Mary Towneley loop is also gravellable with care. There will be hills, though.

Tourist-wise, Hardcastle Craggs, obvs. The local moors are steeped in folklore, if that’s your bag. Todmorden has a paranormal reputation – although that may well diminish now that Chipps has moved away. Plenty of places round about with a Ted Hughes/Sylvia Plath connection (Lumb Falls, Churn Milk Joan etc). The Piece Hall in Halifax is a nice space. Not much at Vocation brewery itself, but next door is Craggies farm shop, which does a decent breakfast.

Deviate even nod to the GT RTS in this little piece about the history and benefits of high pivots:

https://www.deviatecycles.com/high-pivot-mtb

I think the main issue with an idler BITD was incorporating the triple chainset… YMMV, natch.

There is a city in Mexico (Pachuca) which welcomed Cornish miners at the beginning of the 19th century to mine the local silver. As a result there are fish and chip shops (with ‘unusual’ fish), and also a local delicacy called pastis, which they will snick a hole into after it’s cooked and thread a large chilli inside.

Quite possibly the weirdest intro ever to a FGF!

@footflaps, I’m almost insulted ;-)

I’ve bought some from simply bearings  – replaced the stock nitrile 70 ones with nitrile 90 so they don’t leak. 1.5cross section x 3mm internal dia. Caveat – I’ve not fitted them yet :-)

https://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/Seals-O-Ring-Seals-NITRILE-O-Rings/c19_4501_4705/index.html?selection=Nitrile+Rubber+O-Rings

OK, 80% hike-a-bike, 92% misery. 😘

Can I just point out that he did all this with NO CHAMOIS?! Dear god, that’s a level of commitment to pain I can’t even contemplate.

Is it bad that I’m struggling to read many of these posts without sniggering?

Personally I’ve found that washing them sorts out the issue with mine (TLD 5450s, or OU812s, or something)…

Fantastic, folks. Thanks very much. Ordered :-)

The website says bring your own drinking water, and that there are no showers. I predict a run on baby-wipes in Thirsk this weekend..

I’ve pretty much given up with that bit of it – I just chortle softly at it occasionally. But it’s hardly a serious training tool for me; more another set of inducements to keep on running/riding…

GBH is awesome. Woody’s is awesome. Cardinham is fun. There’s even some XC Redruth way, and there’s plenty of cheek on Bodmin. Police Valley is awesome, and there’s some cheek in Unity Woodsl. No, there’s not as much as there is in Devon perhaps, but it’s *absolutely* worth taking a bike.

Some cool looking stufff there. Even the Terrortrike ™. Reach measurements (on the top few) are pretty pointless without indications of size tho… :-)

This is… bleak AF 0_o

They cater to people 210cm tall, with a bike with a reach of 570mm (for the 29er – lets be honest, no-one a hair off 7ft tall will be running 27.5), and a wb of 1391mm.

0_o

Wonder how many of those they’re aiming to sell?

https://youtu.be/vOYI85anqmQ

“Today’s the fourth of July

Another June has gone by

And when they light up our town

I just think what a waste of gunpowder and sky”

 Just a wee bit too misogynistic, and little bit too racist for my taste. It’s  shame (the concept is interesting, the Basil Exposition I could’ve done without) but he writes – and I hate to say this, like a lot of nerdy US white male writers (see Stephen King, et al). It’s almost like they have a blind spot for it.

I honestly didn’t notice any of that. I definitely see the ‘nerdy white writer’ thing – the style is called ‘maximalism’ for a reason, and I’m a fan of Basil Exposition in book form – and there’s clear evidence of deeply, deep heavy  research, but maybe you’re right. I am, after all, a white, middle-aged bloke, so maybe I’m blind to it too. I do try not to be, mind. 🤷

Great thread. I also highly recommend Neal Stephenson – the baroque cycle, Cryptonomicn and Anathem are simply astonishing. Anathem is the only book I’ve ever finished and then immediately started re-reading. His early stuff is good too – the Diamond Age in particular is bursting with fantastic ideas – but the books I mentioned at the beginning are up there with Banks – and possibly exceed them in terms of slack-jawed intellectual astonishment.

I *do* like the very subtle “shimano baaaaad, SRAM gooooood’ message 🤣

Mineral oil (Shimano) is for noobs who don’t ride HARD and who don’t maintain their bikes. Dot (SRAM, in this instance) is for REAL riders, on REAL terrain, riding REAL bikes, like REAL tigers! Grrrr, tiger!

I should point out that my 3 main current bikes have SRAM (Dot), Shimano (Mineral) and Hope(Dot). I like all of them :)

Rime is a lovely little puzzle game. Surprisingly poignant, if you simply take a punt on the Zelda-like visuals and don’t read any synopses online. Not sure about xbox, but it’s definitely on Steam.

I wish Portal 2 was available on modern machinery. I’ve just revivificactionalized my xbox 360 just to play it again :)

If you, the installer, think the ultrasonic things are making it worse…

Could you not… take the ultrasonic things down?

Just a thought.

I quite like the concept but genuinely interested to hear how this helmet will be faring after a couple of months worth of rain and grit in between the sliding elements. Let us know. Ta.

Assuming it’s essentially identical to the Bell one (and given that Bell and Giro are basically the same company I expect this to be an iteration of it, if not exactly the same) I’ve ridden my Bell in a variety of different conditions for a couple of years now, both open and full-face, with no issues. It’s a little weighty, but it’s not unmanageable. I’m fully behind the idea, I just need this to be perhaps a little lighter and less mushroomy than the Bell SuperDH (in open config) and I’ll be happy.

It’s not so bad as an open face helmet but as soon as I put the chin bar on it squeaks quite badly.
Mrs has the same lid in a different colour/size and that does it too.

Interesting! I guess it’s friction between the inner and outer shells, rather than the silicone attachments? I suppose some sort of lubrication (talc, graphite, – uh – olive oil?) between the inner and outer shell might help. Maybe I just have very greasy hair 🤣

It’s the same tech as the MIPS Spherical on the Bell Super DH from what I can tell. I have no idea why they’re separating it from the MIPS bit in the marketing – as far as I know it was developed and designed by/in conjunction with MIPS – the difference is that you need to design the helmet around the tech, whereas ‘standard’ MIPS can be retrofitted to (most) ordinary helmets for an extra layer of protection.

This one has an inner helmet layer of polystyrene and an outer layer separated by the usual silicone attachment that standard MIPS uses. The main difference is that, as it doesn’t have to conform to the (ovoid) shape of your head as much, you can dial in extra movement in the event of a crash.

When you crash with normal MIPS, there comes a point after a few degrees of rotation where the MIPS layer and your head binds against the helmet. The idea of the spherical stuff (it’s not *really* spherical) is to increase the degrees of rotation before the forces are applied to your head.

Does that help?

I can’t say I’ve found my Bell Super DH to be squeaky at at, but it’ll be interesting to see whether this Giro manages to avoid the somewhat mushroomesque demeanour of the Bell…

a 29er Maverick with modern geo. Still, can’t have everything :-)

Often, the ‘female specific’ variant will come down to choice of grips, shock tune, saddle and perhaps one or two other things. The Geometry itself will often be exactly the same – there are as many, if not more variations within sexes than between them. When it comes to reviews, there are general issues between sizes such as different wheelbases, mass, centre of gravity etc, and the arbitrary nature of reviewers’ subjective opinions being seen as objective – but you also need to factor in huge areas of uncertainty such as technique, riding style, where the reviewer rides etc. Even if someone of the same aptitude, weight, height, location etc were to review the same bike, there’s no guarantee your wife would like it. But it’s all information to help you make a choice.

In a nutshell, reviews are subjective. I’d suggest she ride the bike first if at all possible. If not, she needs to read as many reviews as she can, speak to people who might be the same size and aptitude as your wife (Facebook is actually useful for things like that) to help her make a decision that’s not just based on one reviewer. What sort ion riding she likes etc.

The last point I’d make, though, is that there are very few sh*t bikes around these days. And people are capable of adapting to a great many tiny variations. Chances are, whatever she buys, with a bit of fiddling, she’ll be happy with.

These folks are pricey, but very good. I’ve had their two darkest roasts so far, and would recommend: https://www.decadentdecaf.com

In the mid eighties, my little sister (about, maybe 8 or 9 years old) decided she didn’t want her cheese and tuna pitta bread – and so left it under her bed, and promptly forgot about it.

Fast forward two weeks, when a large writhing ball of maggots was eventually discovered where it used to be.

To teach my little sister a lesson, my mum made her carry the lump of maggoty stuff to the bin with a small coal shovel. My sister was screaming with revulsion from the moment it was on the shovel, along the landing and half way down the stairs, when I though it would be utterly amusing to leap out at her and go “BOO”. This made her jump. A lot.

After that, the maggots were all over the floor, down the stairs, and – of more pressing concern to my sister – all over her hair and down her neck. In her pockets…

I really was/am a complete b**tard.

What ho folks! Not sure how I missed adding it in first time round, but as has previously been mentioned, the travel is 145mmR and 150mm front. I’ve asked ST to add this to the story (I can’t :-))

@theghost “It looks like SC have fixed all the issues with the last Chameleon in the latest update”

Curious to which issues you refer?

I note from the link in the story that there is a frame option in the US ($949). I seem to recall when I bought my alloy Chameleon (2017 I think) I paid £650ish for the frame (yes, I bought it at full retail). I’m surprised they’re not offering a frame-only option in the UK, although I wonder if one might appear further down the line. The whole marketing thrust on the SC website, after all, is individual customisation.

Geo changes from its predecessor are interesting too. On the XL bike, there a 5mm increase in reach, a shorter TT and a steeper (by nearly 2 deg) SA, which is going to make for a shorter-feeling bike overall. Curious to see how it rides…

Scott – yes, you very much are missing something. For example:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6116811/

If you consider the perineal area specifically, then innervation, sebum secretion distribution and rates, pH levels and infection types and rates are just a few of the substantial skin differences between men and women.

There are substantial differences between races too, FWIW (apart from the rather obvious differences in melanin concentration, there are differences in trans-epidermal water loss, blood vessel reactivity and elasticity among others) but we’ll not get into those :-)

@twonks – From what I understand (I are not an engineer) the entire pedal load is borne by interface of the first few teeth of the chainring with the chain. Chain wrap isn’t an issue…

IHN – blimey, it only got here on Weds afternoon! First ride last night. Initial impressions are very good. Feels fun; poppy. Saddle is a bloody agonising razor blade, mind you. Full review should be up in a couple of weeks or so.

I’d be interested in the BMW GS…

I love FGF (esp when what appeared to be a drug fuelled Barney was writing it).

Cheque’s in the post, mate. :-)

Hello! There is much more off-piste stuff there that I didn’t cover for obvious (PRoW) reasons – but I echo Unity Woods and the other trails around Carn Brea. Poldice is mostly fine IMO, as long as you don’t charge about recklessly – as mentioned, there are a few spicy bits you could come a cropper on if you don’t watch out. One of the old trail builders works at the shop in Bissoe IIRC. There are some great views on the N coast around Porthtowan too, if you really want to stretch your legs – some very stiff climbs too.