The SDW on a singlespeed? How on earth did you get up Amberley Mount? I struggle to get up in my granny gear!

If you are looking for new trails, you should take a look at the Strava Global Heatmap which is a combination of all the rides logged on Strava. There are lots of road rides on here, but also plenty of off-road too (which is easier to see if you have the Veloviewer OS map overlay and use the ‘grey’ Heatmap option)… QECP is clearly visible, and if you head North you can see Surrey Hills and Swinley.

I’m pretty sure Islabikes will sell you a saddle – the ones on the Beinn 24 is a good size for a 10 year old. Give them a call.

I spent 2.5x my original ‘budget’ on my first MTB. It’s now done 3,500 miles, so I think I can say it was money well spent.

That Diva looks like a great bike – so you’ve no excuses for not riding it at every opportunity.

13.5″ Rockhopper from eBay, now also sporting Rebas from eBay… for my 11 year old (now just turned 12).

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I have an i-GotU GT-120… it says it will hold 64,000 data points, which I have not tested, but I often have several rides on it. My longest ride was 12.5 hrs using about 27,000 data points, and that’s set to 1 point a second when moving at moderate speed.

Mine has no connectivity at all, so it’s switch it on, stick it in my pack, and then forget about it till the end of the ride. I like the simplicity of it. Great bit of kit.

Anthem – 30p per km, Avalanche – 10p per km. This makes them the ‘cheapest’ bikes in the household.

We also have bluebells here in West Sussex (Hampshire is a mile down the road)… as well as some great views. Luckily my lad can cope with the hills as it’s hard to find good riding for younger riders who want to progress beyond disused railways. The new Blue Trail at QE will be a good option once the climb is open.

doing. Otherwise buy new… you’ll get ‘less’ but at less risk.

Your priorities should be (1) A decent fit – which you can adjust relatively cheaply if it is slightly too long with a shorter stem, some new bars (wider/narrower and more/less rise) as well as an in-line vs layback seatpost (2) A decent fork with adjustable rebound – air if you can, otherwise budget for a new soft spring if you are lighter. (3) As light as you can get… cheap bikes are often heavy – I shop with cheapo luggage scales. (4) Hydraulic disc brakes, though cable are OK (5) Last on your list is decent kit… even cheap kit is pretty good. Avoid integrated brake+gear levers if you can as it makes upgrading shifters a pain.

£500 should get you most of this – though probably not an air fork.

I’d try a Boardman or a Voodoo at Halfords or a Rockrider at Decathlon if buying new… and if you can, bring a mountain biking mate along to help. But I would definitely budget on a new saddle, and maybe a new stem and bars (a stem can be had for £15, and bars for not much more – and lots of people sell standard bars 2nd hand as ‘wider bars’ is a trend… I have 3 680s lying about).

I’ve been through an extreme version of this process sorting my 12 year old son. He’s now got a 13.5″ 2nd hand Rockhopper with a short stem and narrow flat bars (to keep the front end low), and I’ve just swapped the Dart 3 forks for some 2nd hand Rebas as he just was not heavy enough for even the lightest coil fork.

I lovely evening this evening… bluebells, great light and fast dry trails… PBs on all 3 of the Stoughton DH trails for me!

I can’t say I ever tried to drop my post right down to the collar… but it would certainly drop ‘enough’. Now I have a 100mm drop Reverb and it’s a great bit of kit.

September 2007 – Bikeradar review[/url]. That eBay bike doesn’t look quite the same, though!

Superstar valves and yellowtape with Stans sealant here. Once I got the knack of getting the tyres on it all seemed very straightforward… I only needed one push with a lever to get the tyres seated last time, and they went up with the track pump no problem.

Ideally you should be just back from a ride – so it makes perfect sense.

Isopropyl alcohol on the rotors… and sand the pads. Seems to work.

I think it depends on your local conditions. I use kevlar year round and really rate them – but go somewhere sandy or gritty and sintered are better.

I bought my first proper MTB 4 years ago, aged 47… and justified spending a fair amount on it on the basis that it would last me until I was too old to need anything better. Now I realise how wrong I was… I can see my riding improving for a while yet, and I think I’ll still get a kick out of a decent bike when I am in my 60s.

slackalice… Probably see you there then, I’m hoping to be allowed out all weekend, so I’m hoping to Marshal as well. You can add me to the list Scott.

Slackalice -I have no lights Not in a position to acquire any ATM either with pending house move in August and general mis-management of personal finances

And still feeling gutted after missing out last summers’ event due to a night of massive excess

I’m pretty sure we can kit you out with lights… I can lend you a couple.

It’s pretty hard to find ‘the right bike’ for kids when they start to need an adult MTB but in a small size. My son, who is now nearly 12, moved up from a Beinn 24 to a Beinn 26s and then last year to an XS Rockhopper. With a shorter stem and narrow flat bars the riding position is pretty good (very similar to the Beinn 26s apart from the front end being much higher). The main issue is the forks – even with a soft spring the Dart 3s give little travel and have no small bump sensitivity, and that’s because at 5 stone he’s just too light for them. I’m about to try some Rebas, but I think they’ll need to run at about 40psi!

I’m hoping that we’re now into swapping stems and bars, and then finally a reframe as he gets older… that’s my excuse for buying the Rebas anyway. A benefit of running a 26er is that you have a much wider choice of tyres.

I was doing a MIAS course this weekend (so we can take schoolkids mountain biking)… Saturday at QE, which was OK after the rain, and today up at Farley Mount near Winchester… it’s first time I’ve been to Farley Mount… some fun riding, but it seems hard to fine a good route that doesn’t keep hitting roads. A great view from the top, though.

I do try to stop and take in the views – even on the top of my local hill, which I have ridden up several hundred times. The views are one of the great joys of mountain biking.

But the snacks are often taken somewhere else – last Sunday’s ride included ‘brunch’ at the QECP cafe, beer and ice-cream at a pub at the bottom of the days biggest descent, and then a cream-tea and cake at Compton tea-rooms on the way back to Kingley Vale. Strava says I used up 2,900 calories on the ride, and I’m hoping I just about broke even for the day.

Hmmm… not sure I’m up for racing (lifetime results = 1 mates race: 1 last place) but I’m hoping I can marshal. Should be great.

and I will probably be riding KV on Thursday evening, though I am not 100% sure yet

Maybe not as small as you’d want, but £7.50 from Lightmalls, and as it’s an XM-L2 powered by an 18650 it will run as your main trail light. Does about 2.5 hours on a pretty bright MED setting (which is what I use for most off road riding) and should do possibly 10x that on LOW based on the draw. You do need to fork out another £1.75 for a mount, and you do need cells (free from an old laptop) and a charger (£5).

First ‘epic‘ of the year on Sunday… 42 miles taking in QE, some of the SDW, and Kingley Vale. What glorious weather – and fantastic dry conditions pretty much everywhere. We stopped for brunch in QE, had beer and ice-cream in Buriton, and a cream-tea and cake at Compton tea-rooms. It feels like summer already!

Some of the ‘cheeky trails’ ethics ought to be included.

I’m using 18650 torches, so I’ve just ‘upgraded’ with 2 501b XM-L2s… £9 each, as I already have a charger and a large supply of laptop cells.

All the trails are drying out nicely so should be fine – but be careful on the shaded chalky descents as the off camber bits may still be a bit slick. I did (most of) the SD last summer… it rained that morning and one of our party had a big crash just after Bignor Hill (at 50.909900, -0.595250)

My route notes from Cocking – counting down the climbs… ascent in metres, climb to summit in km, and the rough distance in miles from Winchester. Tap locations at the bottom… the one at Botolphs is easy to miss as it’s tucked in the bushes on your right as you near the end of a descent… you don’t need to carry too much water as there are plenty of taps.

… ‘eels low – and possibly grippier shoes?

Kingley Vale on Saturday – got so hot I was forced to stop at a pub to ‘rehydrate’. Back up Kingley Vale on Sunday with my 11 year old lad… in the last week my local trails have gone from ‘interesting’ to ‘fun’ so I wanted to get him back on his bike.

Everywhere seems to be drying out now… so the chalk and well drained sections are much better, but the muddy, poorly drained sections are if anything worse as they are very sticky.

Weather looks good for a few days now so everything should improve significantly.

I think your main worry will be the impact on the soft sections of several hundred riders.

… or first climb to the top, turn onto the road, up to Juniper car park and take the fire road over to session Snakes and Ladders.

There is also a ‘bookmarklet[/url]‘ which will allow you to use different maps with Veloviewer – including OS 1:25,000… but my favourite feature is the 3D ride mapping.

The Veloviewer plugin is excellent – and if you are a Premium user you can use it with your ‘Heatmap’ too… Bing also works, but struggles with multiple GPX overlays.

Though whether you can do this when it’s slippery, I’m not so sure.

Just got myself a Decathlon MTB Jacket 7… very impressed so far, as it’s comfortable and waterproof.

Lots of water once you get down from the hills…

… and some trees down – I got out of here PDQ as a tree behind me was half down and there were ominous cracking noises in the gusts

It’s very variable… the well drained areas are still dry and fast but some other bits are pretty boggy. The main issue you will face is any off camber wet chalk… it is lethal when it’s raining and shortly after, but a couple of hours of strong breeze and you will be fine. I’m using XRMud and they are doing a decent job… I’d have thought Beavers would be another good choice, but I have not used them myself.

Great pic rOcKeTdOg… how did you take it?