I’ll be heading out for a look tomorrow I hope.

Usually the chalk is fine as long as it has had a couple of hours to dry.

My guess is that the two bridlepaths to the West of the tumili are very boggy by now, and that from the top of Bow Hill to Blackbush House is a swamp. I’m also guessing that the Walderton Down climb from the top of the first pitch through under ‘the bar’ and up to the top of Cardiac is also going to be bad.

Most other parts usually survive the heavy rain… we had good riding on KV throughout 2012 even while the valley was flooded at Stoughton.

If you are careful when shortening the hose then you won’t need to bleed your Reverb.

I have a GPS logger – so Strava is something I look at after I’ve got home, had a wash, had tea and then remembered to charge it back up. Any PRs etc are all a bonus. I’m far too rubbish to be chasing KOMs – in fact I was relieved when one I had fell to someone better as it was embarrassing to be KOM on a climb where I’d had to walk a short section!

It’s all just a bit of fun, but best of all is finding new routes when you see where other members of your Strava Club are riding.

These are pretty good – a reasonable compromise as they have pins and decent grip, but they aren’t too vicious. And they are cheap!

Nano through pin or MG-1… Nanos feel bigger and have a slightly better platform, but MG-1s are a bit lighter. I have a pair of each – and each have survived 2,500 miles with no problems.

I have no problem with dirty clothes in the washing machine – we have a shower by the back door, so I just walk in, turn the shower on, and get undressed under the shower (shoes as well). Mind you, I did have to clear 20kg mud from a blocked drain….

Frame, fork… £1,500 or so

There’s a relatively new Facebook group called Join-a-Ride[/url] which might be useful… especially if it keeps expanding.

also Wiggle[/url], CRC…

501b XM-L2 – £7.50. You’ll need cells (free from an old laptop), a £5 charger and a lockblock style mount like this one for £1.50

Also, if it has a tailcap like the one in my pic above, then check that the lockring inside it is tight. There are usually 2 indentations in the lockring so you can tighten with any pointed tool. If the tailcap lockring is loose the light may well switch off altogether.

The clicky-clicky torches change modes by interrupting the current – so if the cell is not snug and you hit a bump (or shake it) the torch will change modes. It should not turn off though.

If you wrap your cells in electrical tape they will move less (you can also use a small strip of plastic cut to jam the cell in more tightly). Another fix is to make the cells longer using a small rare-earth magnet or even a small screw in the tailcap spring… necessary if you use unprotected cells which are about 2.5mm shorter than the protected versions (e.g. recycled laptop cells as below).

My other two bit of advice, which may be less useful if you are riding as a family, are:

(a) Find some like minded people to ride with. Mountain biking is a very sociable sport, so it is easy to fall in with ‘the right crowd’ who will help you learn and help you tackle things you did not think you could manage.

(b) Get some decent lights and try night riding… it’s great fun; it expands your options for riding in winter; and for the kids (OK, for everyone) it’s an adventure. If you go for ‘18650’ torches rather than purpose MTB lights then all you need one £5 charger, a then a couple torches with mounts and cells for each one of you… and a 501b XM-L2 torch is under £10 these days.

I would add decent shoes and pedals to the good advice so far. Many bikes come with poor pedals on the assumption that people will change them – but especially with flats if you pair these bad pedals with the wrong shoes you will not have much fun. So go SPD and get comfy shoes, or get some decent large platform flats and some comfy and grippy shoes.

As to bikes, budget is key… if you can afford £500 for an adult bike then you have some decent choices in Halfords (Carrera or Voodoo) or Decathlon. Or look out for good deals on older stock – you can enjoy riding on just about anything, but a decent damped fork, hydraulic disc brakes and an all up weight close to or better than 30 lbs will help a lot.

Kids bikes are another matter – focus on light weight and a good fit above all else, and unless you are spending serious money think hard before getting anything with suspension forks. Islabikes are very light helped by having no suspension but all the kit is child friendly. They are excellent, but not cheap. My lad, now nearly 12 has only just moved from Islabikes (Beinn 24, then Beinn 26s) to a XS Rockhopper… and the one weak spot on the Rockhopper is the fork as he’s just too light to get much travel out of it, even with a lightweight spring in it.

You can ask the Strava support people to delete them… they may or may not do this, but deleting them is no guarantee that someone won’t recreate them.

Your best bet is probably to ’flag’ the segments as ‘hazardous’ – it won’t remove them, but it removes the competitive elements.

the water… was a bit deep at times

Yes, that’s definitely more than just a puddle!

Not sure… I’ve not been out since 15th Dec when I crashed on some of that there slippery chalk (in driving rain) and injured my shoulder! It’s pretty wet and boggy at the moment, but a day to dry out and there will be good riding to be had. 2012 was a good year and it was just as wet as this.

Kevlar for me, as they work well in all conditions where I live (South Downs). If you are riding somewhere very sandy or gritty then sintered might be a better choice.

Yes – in Oslo some years back. It was delicious.

Reads like a bit of observational fun to me – and it makes cyclists out to be a wide variety of real people which in my view is a good thing.

If it’s not original then by all means slag it off as lazy journalism – but this sort of piece is always going to be amusing generalisations drawn from observation… “man balancing, stationary on a fixed gear bike at the lights… show-off” seems pretty familiar from bike forums.

I demoed a Mach 5.7 alloy a couple of years ago – so far it’s the only bike I have ridden that I would exchange for my Anthem with no qualms at all. Great suspension, climbs just as well as my 100mm Anthem and when the trail heads down you’ve a lot more travel to play with. Great bike: would love to have one.

I have an ‘expensive’ FS bike which I bought new before I new much about bikes – and a ‘cheap’ hardtail which I bought of eBay. Including improvements but not consumables (chains, pads, lube) they work out at 55p a mile and 20p a mile respectively which makes them the ‘cheapest’ bikes in my household.

In the 4 years I’ve been riding the ‘top end’ seems to have got much more expensive. At the ‘good basic’ level many bikes are more expensive or have poorer kit at the same pricepoints (especially forks), but online sellers like Canyon and shops like Halfords seem to have kept prices down.

For bits though, there are plenty of value options – I’m a big fan of Superstar, On-One and Carboncycles… and lights are MUCH cheaper (my last XM-L2 torch was under £10).

As an FYI there’s a newish Facebook group called Join-a-Ride[/url] where people can post rides as Events for others to share. I had a guided tour of Whiteways/Houghton Forest on Sunday which was great fun.

WOWOW slap wraps… cheap and effective

I cut mine with a craft knife – no mess, and no need to bleed. As it was evening I had a beer after.

Son, 11 – I’ll have to check how tall he is but pretty average, but possibly a fair bit more than 4ft 5in. He’s now on a 13.5 Spesh Rockhopper. It needed a shorter stem and flat bars – the main issue with any adult bike is the height at the front. I very nearly got him a 15in Boardman ladies MTB – we tried it for size and it would have been fine (again with a shorter stem), but most 15in bikes were way to big.

But I think you do need to try for size – too big is not good.

I ride alone at night a fair bit, but I would have binned your ride based on the fog. It’s very easy to get lost in fog – I’ve even missed a turn on an easy descent which I have done 150+ times. And at night fog makes your lights worse than useless as you just get lots of backscatter.

Roam and Seasons for me… also Three Minute Gaps

I went there for the first time a couple of weeks back… and I would definitely go again. The car park was rammed – but out on the trails it was not too crowded – you would come across some big groups, but I rarely felt held up (maybe I’m just very slow).

There’s not much overall elevation, but there are plenty of flowing sections, and I really enjoyed the ‘old’ DH trails which they have kept (over by Labyrinth). Went with friends – we all had a good time.

matt_outandabout – Member

Occasionally I chuck a GPS in the back of my rucsack. I never faff with it until I am home. The only stops are for cake, map reading and a suitable view or ambience that needs soaking up.

Now that is my kind of riding!

I have a GPS logger, which is a small box with an on/off button that I put in my pack. So when I’m riding I am ‘unplugged’.

But when I get home I can download my GPS track so I can see where I’ve been… which is great when you’ve been shown around somewhere new. Yes I do upload to Strava to keep a record of all the places I have been, and I am interested in my times up some segments some of the time.

I also really like our Strava club – it’s a good why of finding new people to ride with, and new places to check out. But it’s not a race… well, it’s very rarely a race!

I use reclaimed laptop cells… I’d say about 75% are keepers, with the odd one being ‘dead’ and getting damaged by my less-than-subtle attempts to get them out.

The cells are all unprotected, but they are of good quality – I can’t say what capacity they have as I don’t have the kit to measure them, but they charge up to 4.15v, they hold their charge, and they give decent run times. It would be interesting to have a ‘known’ quality cell to compare them to… maybe I’ll buy one at some point, but a decent cell costs more than a new light!

I now have a C8 XML-U3 and 2 x 501b XM-L2s… that’s just over £30 at today’s prices.

Sounds good to me… if I can free up a day. I’ve not ridden much West of the A3.

scoop

Numpty

Will we now see a flurry of attempts at the “QE Beginners Trail – Killer Climb” segment before it gets replaced? Looks like I’m 3rd of 14 for the QE Collective – which just goes to show that most of them haven’t had a go at it yet.

That’s OK – as long as you enjoy riding it then we’ll be happy. As a lazy fecker you get no choice of lines or features – but that’s your loss :D

Ridgeback MX16 are great little bikes – we had two of them before the kids got bigger.

For longer rides, apart from time on the bike and set-up/contact points, I’d focus on making sure I had the right kit… comfortable clothes and shoes, and the right food and drink as well as tools/spares and a comfy pack to stow it all.

I’m still trying to find the perfect food for all day riding… when I did the SDW I was glad I had some freebie gels with me – I’d never used them before, and they do taste terrible, but they kept me going. Next time I’ll take more dried apricots as they went down well.

I’ve also just come across SouthDownsMTB[/url] who are based in Havant and who seem to be pretty active. They say they ride out Fareham way as well as over where I am… I may join up!