Fairly warm, reasonably breathable, but not really that waterproof. Excellent jackets though, for £45 well worth it. And you’re correct, they were more expensive. I have had one for several years used on and off road, and have just at the beginning of this winter bought another one as the original getting a bit tattie. For that price well worth having.

Inverness – Great for biking of any sort……not so good for being a city.
I live in there (here!), great place to live, lots of mtb from the door, plenty more in the not too distant surrounds, great road biking too if you’re into that, but really not a “city” in terms of night life, social scene, that kind of thing.

Yeti ASRc??

Dolan or OnOne would be my dilemma if I really felt I needed a cx bike…….

Bizarrely I shared a shower with these guys this morning 😯
I’d been for a swim (at The Aquadome in Inverness) and there were two guys showering with cycling gear on chatting about heading back down England way somewhere. Also a couple of other guys, support I’m guessing, talking about them having kept up a 20mph overall average speed for the first 600 miles, and various other snippets of info while expressing a palpable aura of achievement……..my mind boggled! And out in the car park there were 2 tandems on the roof of a Volvo. Impressive stuff I thought, had no idea just how impressive though! Good effort.
The only negative aspect of the whole experience is that when there’s that many people using the communal showers all at once the power is a bit shit…not ideal!
……I don’t think it was a dream!

Heatmaps are quite sexy…..unless you ride the same route all the time.

Check Winstanleys for Hope Hoop prices. I purchased a pair (29er with Arch rims) a couple of weeks ago for £290ish.

Just got a pair of these:

http://www.shinybikes.com/fulcrum-racing-3-2013-clincher.html

Best price I’ve found recently. It was between the Fulcrums and the RS80s for me.

This one used to be mine – sold it to some bloke on here a few months back. I do miss it a wee bit – especially at this time of year.

Spokes – yes,

brass nipples – yes,

alloy nipples – NO, bin them as they are false (weight) economy, IMHO.

Regarding Golspie – as mentioned by the OP.

It’s private, not FC, which of course is irrelevant on whether you should pay or not, but if you join the local cycling club (£10), you can buy a season pass for Golspie (another £10).

Too cheap not too – I would guess many of the “locals” have this, and I would also guess that many of the cars you see parked there are “locals”.

That’s not to say that plenty people don’t pay who should – just saying it may explain the apparent tight arse Golspie issue.

Of course there are plenty tight arses up here too – just like the rest of the country. No smiley required.

KSi7 Remote here – the 27.2 one with external reservoir thing.

Been using it for 18 months with no problems. Took it apart a couple of weeks ago for the first time to clean/lube – it had no signs of any wear & tear to the seals/shaft.

So no complaints at all.

druidh – this mentions a wee bit about the Glen Golly track if it helps any.

Arkle Loop

Meanredspider – You stay off the A9 altogether then?? Must be another guy – whoever he is, he’s out of the saddle going for it all the way up the hill……

Anyhow, I digress, good luck with the Puffer – I’ve decided to retire this year, but may well come along to spectate for a while on Saturday evening.

Trailrakers were my tyre of choice btw – about the only use they got all year!

meanredspider – are you by any chance to be seen powering up the hill from the Findon junction to Duncanston (A9)of a morning at about 07.35ish (for most of 2011, riding a Boardman roadbike)?? I saw that guy alot this summer/autumn as I was making my way from Inverness to Invergordon.

Weather

Mostly

Shite

What Martinxyz says is good advice.

You have no idea how delighted I am with my decision NOT to do the Puffer this year.

I would definitely recommend anyone to do a few Puffers, just so then you are qualified NOT to do it. It’s going to be my most enjoyable Puffer yet……..hopefully…. 😀

…plus all that stuff honourablegeorge said……..

cos its a cheaper hobby than drinking these days…….

baronspudulike – I think even if I could get the Cinders to work – I don’t think I’d be 100% confident given my recent experiences – shame beacause I quite like the Cinder as a tyre, and I have three of them in reasonably good nick………nevermind.

esher shore – sounds good to me, when I read your post I remembered I had been looking for a good excuse to try a set of the Spesh Storms for the winter – now I have the perfect excuse…….

Here’s the List of death. I can confirm that IRC tyres – as per the list – don’t work either!!

I had that same thought bigjim, but I too checked and found that they are not on the list of death tyres (anymore??) – this is why I’m wondering if anyone else has tried them and had success/failure/deafness??

Have both SS & Geared. SS gets most of its use night riding off road in the winter. Mainly because it doesn’t need much looking after, and because in the dark you don’t get the same impression of how fast your not getting anywhere on flat bits!
The thing about SS is that your always in the right gear – cos you don’t have a choice, so you just have to make it work – its a waste of time if you can’t be arsed with a bit of a challege.
Couldn’t ever see myself giving up gears though – SS is just a different option.

A lap of Golspie in the morning, removed two drowned mice from a defrosted deepfreezer in the afternoon, made extremely awesome guacamole in the evening – what a day………..

The Five is a good bike, if you get one you will enjoy it. The looks seem to be subjective, but I think in right light (and colour) they’re quite sexy – anyway you can’t see it when you’re on it!

Is that it then?

We go to the French Alps and choose to eat either pizza or curry?

nope, but tonight we fancied curry.

was the fanny drink made from freshly squeezed fannies, or concentrate?

ok, pizza it is then……

Restaurant Le Maharaja – is that the one you went to spanishfly?

I have a Dakine Nomad – does the job pretty well, think I paid £75 about a year ago, so may be a bit pricier now.

I went with Dakine because I have a Helipack that I have had for 12(ish)years and has taken loads of abuse and still going strong – if a little faded!

I though twitter (and facebook) was for attention whores rather than hermits ?

Exactly, I thought the whole point of Twitter was to get as many followers as you can regardless, so you can share your experiences/wisdom/bullshit with them in order to try and make the world a better place – its probably how the Borg started out……

Me – @bigdonx – I too was an anti-Twitterist until I recently decided to dabble with it to investigate its use as a “business tool”……….now I think it’s genius!

On the other hand FB has its uses, but I can’t be arsed with its default lack of discretion, plus Facebook is possibly the stupidist name for anything, ever!

It’s not so much it makes you a better rider, but it lets you adjust your post in situations where you wouldn’t have bothered before. It’s only when you start doing this you realise what a wonderful thing an uppie/downie post is.

Cheers chaps. I am pursuing the warranty angle – I too think it should be covered, but just need a backup plan as need to have forks on my bike by the middle of August for holiday purposes.

TINAS – how much are the internals worth then??

Anyone??

Re-cycling, to re-cycle, so you can re-cycle……..its almost too good for the environment!

Ordered one of those DT Swiss RWS 9mm front skewer thingies this morning to find out if it’s any use.

I too have the creak, exactly the same symptoms – but no QR on the rear…..I was thinking it was BB, was just about to order a new one, but may have to investigate further…….

mtbfix – the optiions for rings issue puts me off a bit too

mtbtomo – I was 1×9 for a year and a half and got on pretty good (32 ring / 11-34 cassette). I put the big ring back on (44) for an event I was doing for more top speed & gear options and realised how much I missed it. Been using 32/44 on the front now for a year, never bothered with the granny again and don’t miss it.

But I’d like to be able to use the big ring over the full cassette range. Can’t really justify 10speed, so was thinking about these FSA jobbies.