On a slightly more helpful note than “bazinga!”….. there looked like there was plenty of availability – Morzine on the friday said 685 or something like that

Bazinga! Booked!

there is a message up…. website is busted “please try again later”

Somebody should send fox a reverb – “this is the competition…. oh, and it’s over £100 cheaper”. I wouldn’t mind if the lever and cable/post interface didn’t look like they’d been cobbled together by the YTS boy in 5 minutes.

As above…. if wiggle the seat when I’m off the bike I can feel a tiny bit of play, but when I’m on the bike I don’t notice it at all.

Theft AND impersonating a police officer….. oh dear oh dear.

Ordered one in Grey…. the good news is that I’ve got several months for the “want vs need” guilt to abate :D

The parts-bin is virtually empty at the moment too – so I see lots of freshly purchased, anodised, cnc’d loveliness in my future

macrumors.com has provided the answer to pretty much any question I’ve had about my Mac…… it’s a pretty friendly forum too

I drop mine to 120 when I see a steep climb coming up – makes the difference between getting to the top, or having to get off and push. I’ve accidentally left mine on 120 for the subsequent down….. not a disaster, but the geo feels all wrong.

As above really, loved it last year and plan to go again this year. TBH there were only 2 or 3 noteworthy queues in the whole day (saturday).
I didn’t feel like the trails were crowded – most sections are wide enough to pass on, no worries.

Sitting?

Surely it’s up to you as the buyer to balance the risk?

expensive item + no photos + vague description + limited forum history + paypal gift + non-recorded delivery = extremely high risk

Low value item + photos + detailled description + good forum history + paypal + recorded delivery = extremely low risk

it’s just up to you to ballance the grey in between.

I don’t care how good/bad/overpriced it is….. it’s gopping

In my experience, competency-based interviewing is a memory exercise for the interviewee – you’re likely to be tripped-up because you can’t remember a relevant example…. not because you don’t have one on your CV somewere.

What I tend to do is: prior to the interview (!) go through my entire job history, post by post, project by project and remember as many specific pieces of work/situations that I can, then think about linking these to key themes like:
Planning
Teamwork
collaberation
leadership
Results (good and bad)
Conflict resolution
etc

I tend to write them down, then just before the interview read them through to jog my memory.

It’s not about learning them verbatim – it’s about reminding yourself about all the relevant examples that you have forgotten about, and having them organised in your brain for when you are under pressure.

I always look at boarding-wear in the UK and think “what sort of a goon would wear neon paisley trousers?!? I’ll just buy these sensible black ones”….. only to get to the alps and wish I’d gone for something a bit more interesting.

Hurtling down an alp strapped to a snowboard is not very sensible anyway…. why not look like a bag of skittles whilst doing so?

oh… and make sure you have your camelbak hose tucked out of the way, otherwise it’s in the top of every damn shot

The chest mount is great, I have mine set-up so it shoots in upside-down mode (helps get a better angle when in the chest mount), and starts recording automatically when you switch it on.

Another good tip (read it on here) is to put two strips of electrical tape inside the chest mount clip – makes it a tighter fit and prevents the annoying clicking noise that you get in lots of gopro clips

I hang mine from the back wheel – you can then take the front wheel off and the bike doesn’t “stick out” into the room/garage as far.

yep…. I’ve done exactly that. Works fine, think quite a few people run it that way

I called them today for a chat – seems like a nice fella.

Him: “what colour are you after?”
Me: “Sort of a bright blue, a bit like the banner on your website”
Him: “oh dear, thats candy blue – the most expensive option: £85”
Me: “Balls”

Non-metallics are £50 apparently, which seems pretty good value from somebody who seems to be coming with some solid recomendations.

I use the 120 setting on my 150 Revelations quite often for steep-ish assents, takes about 1 second to reach down and tweak the dial. Makes the difference between me getting up a steep bit on the bike, or pushing it up.

Wasn’t that familiar with the concept before I bought them – I thought it just reduced the travel. But its the lowering of the front end that helps (does that have the effect of steepening the head angle?)

Neon yellow…. do it! Or Kawasaki green

That’s great feedback guys, thanks.

The frame (steel duster) has got some chainsuck damage to the metal as well as what you might describe as a “pointy dent” high on one seatstay. Nothing serious, but I thought I might get them repaired/minimised at the same time, if possible. The reason I noticed triple-S was that they say they can do minor frame repairs too (often free of charge).

I’ve not had stuff powdercoated before – what would most places do: just coat over the damage? Or does the “prep” involve some sort of smoothing/making-good of any gubbed areas?

Was going to give them a call tomorrow – but wondered what the collective’s thoughts were

How about taking him to a climbing wall? It’s been a while since I was up there – but “The Beacon” in llanberis was good.

http://www.beaconclimbing.com/section.php/2/1/climbing-centre

You’ll find out if he’s a wuss too…..

Thanks all…. all very helpful indeed! Now just to decide on the colour :D

Drive around the corner from the Village hotel to the Aviator…. much nicer. Not Particularly child friendly though.

Crowne-Plaza in Marlow is quite nice… or there’s always Stoke park :D

fake snow effect on the website…. must be legit :-)

THAT, is…. is…. astonishing. Wonder how many they sold?

I would write a letter/e-mail to them – but otherwise, you’re golden.

Nice to see this working in your favour, was expecting a tale of an “evaporating” job offer just prior to christmas!

Just a suggestion: Why not word the letter as a “would really have loved to come and work for you, but have been made a very gererous offer that I can’t really refuse”. You never know, they might come back with a counter offer.

Congrats btw, nice to hear some good job-related news!

Seems to me that both Basil and the seller handled this whole situation pretty well. Assuming that Basil was satisfactorally compensated by his insurance company, it’s really only cost him the ball-ache associated with making the claim (not insignificant I know).

The person that seems to have lost-out here is the seller: losing whatever he paid at the car-boot sale (assuming that story is true). But to be honest, as others have said, buying a high-value and much-nicked item at a car-boot is a risky strategy…. and he got stung.

Fair play to the chap for handing it in to the fuzz, and not stringing the whole thing out further.

Whether its the Police or the CPS, it’s a bit of a farce when you can hand them a couple of thousand quids worth of stolen goods on a plate, along with (potentially) the perp, and nobody seems particularly interested.

Makes you want to go and have a riot about it 8O

I’ve just upgraded the pooey router that Orange give you to an Apple Airport. I still use the pooey-orange as a modem, but that’s wired into the Airport which manages and provides the wi-fi.

An airport made sense for me because all my computers/phones are apple – so it all just works without me having to get involved beyond pluging it in! Also the Aiport has a USB port, which I can connect external hard-drives to, which take care of regular backups and houses my iTunes library. This is great because I can hide them away in a cupboard, and never have to physically connect them to my laptop.

As for speed – it’s noticably quicked than the orange one (an N-speed Belkin or netgear), which I think comes doen to the fact that it’s dual band. In reality this means I can stream HD movies to my telly without it stuttering, the old one couldn’t do this.

Price is comperable to other dual-band N-compliant routers I think.

Hope that helps

Got mine from Hi-bike…. £180 including postage I think

I had a topeak, and recently got a Lezyne for my birthday. Where as there’s nothing wrong with the Topeak, the lezyne is in a completely different class (if you can say that about a pump!). For a gift – go for the Lezyne.

Wonder how many people on here actually saw The One Show, and how many people are just offended on behalf of those people that did…?

Smacks of Ross/Brand/Manuel-gate

He punched Piers Morgan in the face… therefore he has earned a pass for anything he say/does in the future. IMO

I bought those cheap dakine wristguards for my first week – aaaaaand broke my wrist :D
After that I’ve been wearing the “Red” wrist guards, which are more comfortable, and I’ve had 100% fewer wrist breaks over the last 5 seasons, despite some heavy falls.

After my wrist break, somebody recomended that I get elbow pads. I don’t think many people wear them, but I seem to deliberately fall on them rather than my wrist – which seems to be working well. I don’t go out without them now.

Never bothered with padded shorts before, but last season was really icy, so I picked up some 661 bombers from CRC for £15 when they were on sale. Haven’t used them yet, but they seem ideal

No.

If you are a complete beginner, look at the UCPA.

It’s a french “ministry of sport” initiative to produce affordable outdoor holidays – it’s french, but the place is full of Brits, Swedes and Germans. There is a UCPA in the centre of most French resorts (I can recommend Tignes)

Everything is bundled in (acom, all meals, hire, ski pass and full time lessons). Acomodation is basic (think youth-hostel) but clean. The tuition is superb, and the package cost is only (from memory) about 500 Euros.

There is one catch: it is only accessable to “young people”, which I think they define as being 43 or something…… not going to ask you how old you are!

If you are starting from scratch, really don’t bother having a lesson before you go: you will be starting in the debutants group anyway, so will just be treading water whilst the others catch up.

Anyway – just annother option!

Surely one of the huge advantages an LBS has over the internet retailers (including the likes of Canyon and Rose), is their ability to provide customers with the opportunity to see and TRY the bike before parting with a not-inconsiderable amount of cash.

The “you can sit on it, but you’re not allowed to pedal it” aproach completey throws that advantage away. I understand the arguement about the expense of keeping a fleet of demo bikes, but LBSs need to (and many are) fully capitalise on their face-to-face business model. I don’t know how – but I don’t run a bike shop.

I bought my bike from a large online retailer – and their UK rep took me for a 2hr test ride around Swinley beforehand. Better service from an online retailer than your average LBS? Just saying…..

Just go and buy a kindle…. If you get it from tesco online you can get a tenner off (voucher code online). £79 = cheaper than Amazon.