I asked around about the same thing last year, with no luck, because I was in the exact same position Shooterman. My new XL Orange 4 came with a 150mm dropper. It was just sheer bloody luck that with the seatpost fitted as far in as it goes, the saddle height was perfect for me.

Hope you can get it sorted soon. Maybe someone on here will do swapsies?

C.

Yeah! Get in there Daffy!

I got off the bus last night after my 2hr 20min commute home, feeling completely wasted, but I had a plan.

I got in the house, fed the cats before they ate me, then chucked a microwave curry down me throat so my insulin had something to feed on. Chucked my telescope out into the back garden to cool, then got into my riding kit and went for a spin. No sitting down with a cuppa. No, “I’ll just catch up on the news first”. Nope, straight out the door again.

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I only did an off-road circuit of the town, so was barely out for an hour and 20 mins, but I still had a cracking good time blasting through the slidey mud, wet leaves and murderous roots!

Again, I just felt so much better for it. No guilt, angst or self loathing for sitting on the sofa when I ‘should’ be riding! Result! Oh, and I got a good view of the nebulae around the Pleiades when I went out into the back garden later in the evening. Two hobbies in one night!

Did have a bitch of a hypoglycemic episode around 1.30 am mind you! :P

Don’t drive, so I’d guess 99% of mine start from home!

Yeah IainC, I saw you guys exiting Hermitage Woods just as I was beginning the climb. It takes me an hour to get through there and would have meant a painfully early alarm clock setting for a Sunday morning, if I was to get through there in time to meet up at 9am!

I figured Dumyat would be too muddy, so stayed lower and played in the woods. Still mighty greasy in places and I felt particularly guilty as I churned and slid along ‘Love Child’.

It did the job though, and I’m feeling a wee bit more enthusiastic again!

Well, I put a shout out to some riding buddies this weekend, but ultimately, I couldn’t make the times when they were available. I still dug the MTB out and went for a ride though, and was glad I did, even though I had to dig really deep on the way home and I’m feeling it today!

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Climbing up towards the woods, I was treated to a lovely view of a snow capped Ben Lomond….brrr, Winter is Coming!

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I must admit that I was taking it a bit easy as the trails were buried under leaves, hiding the teflon coated roots of death.

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In all the years of riding these woods, I’ve never been to this bit, and was quite lost at this point. I’d taken a new track that was revealed by the vegetation dying back. It led up into a stand of forestry, but I veered away from the main track when I spotted a bunch of tents and some blokes wandering around them. I’ve seen Deliverance….

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Nowt much to say about this, other than it just makes me smile every time I stop here.

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From the end of the trail, I’ve got a 15 mile road ride back home. Some sort of energy drink before tackling that is a given. :P

I made the effort, and even though I’m not so keen on riding solo nowadays, I still had a grand day out. I was really hurting on the long drag home, and was pretty much useless for the rest of the day, but I’m so glad I made the effort.

I have my lights charged now and am going to try and get out for a night ride this week.

Yep, I’m struggling big time. Absolutely love being on my bike, and even more when I’m riding in company. However, I’ve got the better part of a daily two hour commute each way on public transport and by the time the bus has deposited me at the bottom of my street, all I want to do is sit on the sofa. So my evening rides are getting binned, and I feel guilty and depressed because of it.

Added to that, last night was perfect for night riding, but I found myself making ‘what if’ excuses. I’ve been night riding for nearly 25 years, but have really started doubting myself and worrying about injury….again, when out on my own.

Think I’ve got a free weekend though, and I’m going to try and make the most of it. Get the mountain bike out and drag it up somewhere like Dumyat if it isn’t too soggy. The thing is, I know I’ll have a whale of a time when I’m out and will get home buzzing (I may stop off at the Bridge of Allan brewery to fortify myself before the 15 mile ride home), with a huge grin on my face, having had a great time. It’s just that initial push to get me out the door that’s the issue.

Personally, I think the best possible thing you can do if you want to ride, but are struggling with motivation, is to hook up with other riders. I used to be a member of a bike club with a thriving MTB scene for about 15 years, but as that dwindled away, (club politics) so did my enthusiasm. My wife often comments about how I used to ride in the rain / sleet / snow and ice (standard summer weather in Stirlingshire), but now won’t even look out the window if it’s a bit damp. It was never really the riding I was going out for though, it was the company of like minded idiots.

Grit your teeth, dig out the winter kit and get on your bike. You’ll feel better for it.

Maybe we should have a ‘motivation bike club thread’, like the ‘fat club thread’ of yore. I’ll ride if you ride and post pictures as proof! :P

I’ve been running tubeless now for a year or so and haven’t looked back since I bought this,

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/s?q=airwave+airblast+tubeless+tyre+track+pump&cat=product

It has a wee lever that allows you to flip between normal track pump operation or pump the air into a high pressure chamber, then release it all in one blast, easily seating the tyre. Absolutely fabulous bit of kit, and rather annoyingly now sitting at half price!!!!

The couple of times I’ve changed tyres in the last year (using an inner tube to initially seat one side of the tyre, and a liberal dosing of fairy liquid), the tyre has gone on in seconds using this brilliant bit of kit. At £36.50, it is honestly a bargain.

C.

I’ve never owned a car, nor had a driving license as I chose not to go down that route because of medical reasons, (low hypo awareness).

I’d still be very tempted to buy one from Ling though. I like her and I think her website is awesome.

+1 Ling!

People’s Palace (sort of potted history of Glasgow), is always good for a laugh. Wife and I enjoyed wandering through the West End’s Botanic Gardens the other week as well. If you do come down to the West End (wave at me, I’m in the top floor lab of the GBRC), you could wander up to the Hunterian museum, then back down the hill for a pint in Tennents. I enjoyed the mixed grill there so much last Friday, I’m going back for another one tomorrow lunchtime, and that’s got nothing to do with the fact I’m staring longingly at their front door from my office window as I type.

Kelvin Grove museum? It’s got some cracking stuff in it. If you go down Ruthven Street, just off Byres road, there’s a brilliant wee flea market with an excellent comic book store (someone told me), and one of the best 2nd hand vinyl shops in Glasgow.

If you wander along Argyll Street towards the Barrowlands, there’s a brilliant wee sunken garden. It used to be a bunch of shops with another flea market hidden behind them, but now it has this wonderful path running through it, covered in the names and dates of bands that have played at the Barras’. I’d really rate that as worthy of a look!

Sooo,

I’m off to Val d’isere at the start of March with a couple of good mates. They’re both quite good skiers, whilst I’m still kinda snow ploughing my turns on the top section of the local Snow Zone slope. I went with them to Stubai (Austria), back in March and managed the blue slopes, maybe not elegantly, but I managed them.

Confidence is the big problem, I knackered myself quite impressively on my snowboard two winters ago and am having a real problem relaxing into these new fangled ski things.

Anyway, we’re actually going to be based in La Daille, just down the road from Val d’isere and looking at the piste map for the area there appears to be a funicular going up from the village to a large bowl of green runs. Anyone been up there? I’m not looking for thrills and spills, just a gentle bimble up and down with the odd beer stop to people watch. Does anyone know if this area will fit the bill, maybe even help me build enough confidence to attempt other stuff on the hill, later in the holiday. I can also see that there’s a green run back down to the village, but I’ve heard that the lower green runs can be a bit beginner unfriendly in this area! 8O

Am I doomed?

I like the Facebook option. Name and shame! What about informing your local council though? In my head, your local council would clear up the mess and bill the cross border council for the costs, who would then pursue the original fly tipper? At least, that’s what the voices in my head are telling me would be a sensible approach.

Thinking about it, the one time I had proper, bedridden flu, I didn’t feel right for months afterwards. Ended up going to the doc about three months later and sure enough, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The docs reckoned that the flu had triggered an auto-immune response leading to my insulin producing cells getting hammered.

As others have pointed out though, you can’t actually catch flu from the flu jab. The virus is inactivated. What you can feel is a wee bit rotten as your immune system is tricked into producing the antibodies against the inactive flu virus you’ve been injected with.*

*No expert, but the university’s Immunology labs are two floors below our parasitology lab!

:lol:

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me,
And I shall spend my pension
on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals,
and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired,
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells,
And run my stick along the public railings,
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens,
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat,
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go,
Or only bread and pickle for a week,
And hoard pens and pencils and beer mats
and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry,
And pay our rent and not swear in the street,
And set a good example for the children.
We will have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me
are not too shocked and surprised,
When suddenly I am old
and start to wear purple!

Jenny Joseph

That and this are far and away my favourites…

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey–
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter–
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover–
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

T.S. Eliot

Maybe not hip and obscure, but I like them cause they make me smile. :-)

I just got the letter from my GP yesterday, asking me to come in for the flu jab. I normally don’t bother, even though I’m in the ‘at risk’ category because of my type 1 diabetes, but I’ve read a couple of things recently about the current strain being a potential whopper, so I think I might take the time to get it done. I usually feel a bit peaky the day after, whether that’s anything to do with my immune system kicking in, or whether it’s simply psychosomatic….it’s still a good excuse for a day off work, on the sofa with the playstation. :wink:

So where is the school bus these days?

When I were a lad, we had about a 25mins walk to primary school, (short legs). The journey to and from high school (5 miles away), was by bus. I honestly can’t remember anyone getting dropped off by car. Mind you, that was…ahem… a few years ago now. :wink:

I’m afraid I’m not seeing that video in the same way as the majority of folk here. The teacher turned his back on the car, the car nudged him in the back of his left knee forcing him down onto the bonnet of the car. He had about a second (where I personally would be sat there thinking “WTH just happened?” as I tried to extricate my hands out of my pockets), before the car driver floored it, pushing the teacher further onto the bonnet.

The teacher was there, doing his job to keep the kids safe. Driver deserves everything he gets in jail for being a knob end.

Sorry, but that’s how it looks to me.

26in wheels, I’m oot!

From an accident with our lab mascot and the protein cross linker.

Edlong and Lunge have it. Worked for me on numerous occasions!

My wife often says that I can be really quite irritating at times, but I can’t see my name on the list. :cry:

Craig

(just for you MSP :wink: )

So, are the contractors and SP energy basically saying there was nothing wrong with their approach, and to just wait and see what the finished section of path looks like?

In my head, and I’m sure everybody and their granny is ready to pitch in and tell me how wrong my head is :roll: , they flattened and covered that rocky outcrop so they could lay pitched steps in its place. Not ideal, but it would have alleviated the multiple, eroded lines around that section by channelling everyone up the same route. Was that their original plan, which we just haven’t seen completed yet? Or were they simply going to bulldoze and lay a flat gravel path all the way to the summit?

I’m on my 2nd Monarch Debonair RT3. The 1st one failed after about 3 months and was eventually replaced. A year later (just this weekend), I noticed that although the pressure was fine, the replacement shock had lost about half its travel. I removed the shock, and then the debonair sleeve. This came off with an enormous bang, but not any fingers or hands thankfully, and the travel returned to normal.

It seems to be working fine now, but I’m thinking that two very similar issues, on two separate shocks is a big warning sign. If I could afford it, I’d be shopping around for a replacement. :-(

Cheers folks!

The shock behaved perfectly yesterday, so hopefully the ‘stuck down’ fix has worked and I just need to man up and keep a larger supply of clean underpants ready! I’ll keep a close eye on it to see if it misbehaves again!

All I need now is to figure out how my rear brake failed on the switchbacks down to Loch Lomond yesterday! Boiled away it did, and it wasn’t really on a section where you could just say, “ach, I’ll let the bike run for a bit”

Lose 20kg, or buy bigger brakes? Hmmm…. 8)

Yep, it was completely sucked in. Seriously scared the bejeesus out of me when I pulled the outer sleeve off and it went kablooie!

Was taunted by row upon row of shiny new NextBikes filling the racks in Glasgow. Replacments for the dwindling number of quite appallingly looked after bikes that have been available over this summer. None of the new ones come online until tomorrow morning at 9am, and the one shonky old bike that I could find came up with the inevitable “Bike Unavailable’ message when I tried to hire it. So I’ll be getting the Subway again. :-(

Haven’t managed to go properly for about 4-5 days, until this morning. Pooee!

Feeling better in the tummy department, but a little bit queasy all of a sudden as well for some reason.

Thanks for asking though, I appreciate it.

:mrgreen:

I’ve got an Aldi copy of the Moon light. It originally came with a bracket that fitted to the seat rails, but that broke. However, it also came with a rubber ‘watchstrap’ style fitting that sits really securely on my Reverb’s collar.

Works really well, especially as I don’t have very great seatstays on my Four!

Fair play to the Stirling mob for standing up and calling foul.

When I heard there was a path being constructed, I naturally assumed it’d be something along the lines of the handbuilt, pitched rock stuff I enjoy riding in the Lakes, or in a worse case scenario, something like that path that was shown in the video a couple of pages back.

My initial reaction on seeing the photos was ,”Well, that’s not even remotely finished”, but now I’m beginning to understand how wrong I was. I would not have believed that the company who won the tender would so blatantly ignore their own plans, fines should be imposed on them, but I also can’t believe that it came down to a public outcry before work stopped. Where were the folk who approved the work?

Dumyat still needs some sort of armoured path to cope with the sheer number of folk heading up and down it in all weather conditions, let’s hope that it’ll get done properly now.

I just got a Nokia 6 a couple of weeks ago and I quite like it. 5 inch screen, 16mp camera, stereo speakers, 4GB of ram and a clean install of Android Nougat.

I think it sells for £199, but I got it free on an EE contract.

But I have Ally. just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. You should talk to my cat. She buries her head into the corner of the cat box whenever we take her to the vet, but the vet still finds her! :wink:

Bob, I’m very aware of the erosion I cause when I’m on any trail. That’s why I tend to either avoid the most easily damaged trails in poor conditions, (I pretty much avoid Dumyat unless it’s very dry or frozen solid), or walk, rather than ride through sensitive bits that I come across to minimise my impact. Don’t blame me, it’s that wishy-washy tree hugging Ecology degree that I blame.

Not four weeks ago I witnessed a group of about five riders coming down Dumyat on a busy Sunday afternoon with the lead rider fully kitted up in full face helmet, pads and Gopro. I was climbing up the rocky bit, just past the fence as they came down full tilt. I saw a wee kid land on his arse as he jumped out of the way of the lead bike when the guy locked his rear wheel on the gravelly bit before the drop. No harm done, but the family were well pissed off and I got the brunt of it. :oops:

Also watched a Gopro video a month or two back,(do we still call them that?), of a guy descending the Yat that was posted on a facebook group that I subscribe to. In that video you can actually see a walker in a red jacket falling over as he scrabbles to get out of the way of the descending rider.

All I’m saying is that there are some right dicks out on bikes on that hillside at times and maybe this’ll separate them from the folk that do respect each others enjoyment.

Just saying like.

I’ve been walking and riding up and down there for decades and have witnessed, like many others, the way that the trail has seriously degraded over the last 10 years. The ‘sad and boggy’ bit is in a particularly hideous state due to misguided attempts at ‘trail maintenance’ and folk riding there when it’s way too wet.

I rarely ride the main route now, as on most nice dry days, the path is really busy with walkers and a new breed of Strava knobs who appear hell bent on leathering it down the hill, scattering everyone before them while they film themselves on their GoPros. The fact is, the place is so close to Stirling and so accessible, that something needed to be done before the entire hillside ended up in the Forth.

So fair play, it’ll channel the walkers onto the main route, giving them a nice path to walk on, (they were here first). It’ll give the Strava knobs and GoPro knobs something robust to practise their skidding skills and obnoxious entitled fanny skills on, whilst tarring everyone else in the mountain biking community with their brush, (something they excel at). And finally, it’ll give large parts of the hill a rest and chance to recover.

I’m actually kind of interested to see what the path will be like in a few years time, once it’s bedded in and had a good few winters working at it. Might tempt me back onto the main line for the odd night ride, rather than the alternatives that I currently use! :-)

Hey!! :evil:

I’ve got Velociraptors on my hardtail and they’re awesome! Admittedly, they can be kind of lethal on wet roots and pretty deadly on wet rocks if I’m honest. They also have a tendency to clag up with mud, but….but…. they are called Velociraptors, surely the coolest tyre name in the world?

I’m going to pump them up to 55 psi tonight and see if that improves their performance. I’ll let you know how I get on!

This is a very bizarre thread. A couple of years ago, one of my neighbours noticed from her bedroom window that our roof skylight had been smashed in a recent storm. She came to the door and let us know. Should I have punched her in the face? Should I go home and do it now just to be sure?

You’re weird and maybe need to chill out a bit mate. :roll:

I bought an Orange Four last year, and with all the upgrades it cost nearly £4000, but the fun I’ve had out of it this last year has been worth every penny.

I’ve been riding Oranges for about 17yrs now, and up until last year, it’s almost always been through buying frames and swapping kit from the old bike onto the new. My last full sus frame, an Orange Five from around 2010 cost me about £1500. Seems the new frames are going for around £1650 and are significantly lighter and better looking in my opinion. I’d spend that money for what I know is a brilliant bike frame.

C.

You wouldn’t take off. ;-)

Descending Dumyat years ago, sporting a very at the time, de rigueur pair of Ron Hills. I got to what for me was a really steep bit at the time and was just about to tackle it when I saw that there were at least a couple of families walking up the slope towards me.

“Come on then!” they shouted, or words to that effect. So, knees and elbows bent, off the back of the saddle with chin virtually on the stem I started down the slope like some sort of hero from MTB Action. About halfway down my knees started to give out, and I realised I needed to straighten up. That’s when the crotch of my Ron Hill’s snagged under the tail of my saddle. :-(

The cheers of encouragement from the watching families quickly turned to screams and shouts of “Look away Martha!”and “Somebody think of the children!”

It was not my finest, bare arsed moment, it has to be said.

I’ve been using cheap Chinese lights for a few years. Probably on my fourth or fifth set now, but at £30-£50 a pop, they’re cheap and easy to replace when they fail. I use them as a backup / helmet light to complement my handlebar mounted Lumicycle LED.

Reliability and longevity is of major importance to me when winter riding. I’m out in the dark for 4-5 hours on a night ride and need to know that I can rely on my lights to get me out to the trails and back.

I’ve been using Lumicycles in some shape or form since around 2001/2 and have never had a set die on me. I snigger at the folk who snigger at me for riding with expensive lights because they could buy 5 sets of their cheap lights for the price of mine.

Yes, you will. :lol:

Injections. I can’t watch anyone getting an injection, even if it’s a pretend one on the telly. As a diabetic, I stick needles into myself umpteen times a day, but I can’t watch anyone else doing the same.

Yuk!

Been a subscriber from issue 1 and have them all stored in boxes in my garage. I’m kind of liking the idea of making a wallpaper of covers though, that sounds really cool. So their lives may be limited after all!

Sold all my remaining snowboard gear last week…a bit sad about that…but a bad injury two winters ago left me too scared of the consequences of riding the thing again. So, I’m now learning to ski. In March a bunch of great friends who supported me through my whole mending process convinced me to head out to Stubai Glacier in Austria with them.

It was just about okay for my level of skiing (hilariously appalling), and was in my price range for affordability. I think it worked out around 600-700 pp for flights, accommodation, ski pass and kit.

It looks like we’ll be heading to somewhere again this winter. Any recommendations? Affordable and beginner friendly, but with enough stuff to challenge my friends?

C. :-)