blind your threads off and pivots etc first (i.e. use ol BB’s and headsets)

Dont worry, i hear they have a fettish for 140mm leftys and i want to flog them one!

Of the Cannondale variety please…

Just needs tensioning on drive side to pull it back.

Best take it to someone to do if you aint familiar with wheel building

10 min fix and it will feel a lot better when done as you will have lost a fair bit of tension no doubt

For a start avoid the PDS as there is far far better riding out there.

Have a read of our suggestions for a cheap road trip on page 54 of the current WideOpenMag

View the mag here

Rusty Mac, sometimes you just have to sit with it. I had 3 careers before i go where i wanted to be and doing something slightly related to my degree (geology), however this has been thraught. I got my job that i wanted after taking a ten grand pay cut, then 18 months later got made redundant. I fell lucky and started contracting which meant i got the same money for 6 months work and i got loads of varied experience quickly. This lead to a permanent job and now my boss has left and i have taken on his role.

I think sometimes you need luck, but other wise you just need to move around jobs every 18mths to 2 yrs till you see an opening.

Hope that helps.

Oh and DL Autocad and play with it, you will never master it till you use it daily but at least you can put it on your CV

Technicall by agreeing to their terms and conditions (if you went in and signed/returned online)then they will argue that they introduced you so if they employ you they are entitled the fee, its more likely that if this argument erupts then the employer will just tear up both CV’s, if you just emailed your CV then you havent signed anything then contact the rec con and say you want to de register. Its likely that if they are aq two bit agency that they wont follow it up, but its also equally likely that they could be C%$ts about it.

Firstly id contact the employer direct first, explain your situation and tell them what you intend doing. You may get your CV to them before the Rec con

Seriously at this time think folk before you use a rec con (some big co’s do all rec through a specific company with agreed fees) as its a cost that you can go halfs with the employer on while discussing salary. Seriously it works ” i saved you xxx thousand pounds, how about we split the difference”

Rec cons charge anything from 15 – 30% plus (of starting salary), generally increasing to 30% over say 40K, 15% for 10 – 22K salaries etc

I have the same car you are talking about and have noticed vibration in 3rd and 4th mostly, its on 126K 52 plate, could this be the flywheel going on mine?

I hadnt really thought about it to be honest till i read this

Formerly being a recruitment consultant, the first thing i would do is avoid using one where ever you can.

Companies just aint prepared to pay 15-30% of your starting salary so will choose the non agency person generally.

You will get an interview if you go direct as they have nothing to lose and you wont cost them anything.

Get a big sheet of paper, get on the web, find every company that suits you and dont stop till you ahve spoken to the manager / director of them all. Even if they dont need anyone, tell them you would like to start by saving them money and sending in your CV for file. Instant brownie points and a warm contact to call back monthly.

Rob if you want cheap equipment id recommend looking around at auctions. There are a lot that have high end catering equipment in, all stainless steel and often at 10% of teh original value

That was the best TV for a long time.

My highlight being teh ginger kid pretending to be a dog hanging his head out of the hummer window!

Or was it when he changed into a wifebeater to cut the cake.

Or was it when she tried sitting in that dress.

Or was it………..

I think i had more spare cash when i was 12 than i do now.

I used o buy a multipack of chocolate bars (whatever had 5+1 free)for 99p and sell them at school for 30p each (this was the early 90’s). One pack a day turned into 3 or 4 per day

£3.20/day

I used to collect cans on a weekend from the local park where the pissheads got drunk, that then developed into a dog walker collecting them up for me as he was impressed i was doing what i was doing, then the park groundsman got wind of it and seperated all teh cans from his daily cleanup of the full masive park and from all the bins, so id have sacks full every week which my dad used to kindly stick in the van and take to alcan in MacDonalds carpark once a week or take them to the scrap yard. That brought in about £30 a week.

Had a pee easy paperround after school that brought in another £10/week.

I even used to sell conkers that the fat kids were too bone idle to go knock off the trees (the ones fished out the pond brought the premium prices as they would swell up loads!)

Cut grass, spent a summer walking every street in Leeds delivering 1000’s of ikea catalogues, free chocolate bar samples, chocolate rice crispies, doing soap powder questionaires door to door and fiddling teh results to get more commission, washing cars……..

I was minted!

Then at 15 i got a job in a bike shop, a bar glass collecting.

If you want a job, get dressed up smart/respectable and go round everywhere that employs people, ask to speak to the manager and tell them you will do what it takes to bring in some money.

Look them in the eye, firm handshake, think about what you are going to say and believe me you will have a job by the end of the day so long as you walk all over town and call in everywhere. Its not easy and you will be knackered by the end of the day (like us adults are after most days at work) but someone will think, you know what i like that kids style, ill give him a shot!

Just share a bag of coke with your manager at P4U and im sure you will get along fine.

I enjoy telling the ones who are doing something water related that we have a well, telephone ones that we are still on baked bean tins and string and electricity ones that we have a tribe of hamsters and a lot of wheels that generate my power.

The calls never last long

everything is standard other than the disc diameter and thickness which varies slightly, generally the cheaper ones are fatter.

Im going to do just the same as i have 180mm shimano rotors and the 185 avids can go the way of the bay

Rotors should be fine but shimano’s are 180mm and avid are 185 so you may need shimano mounts.

Not sure if a 185 mount that comes with the brakes will sit ok with the 180mm discs???

If you havent rode cannocks new trails then they are worth a ride, more fun than teh Malverns anyhow

One short vid from this years Euro Road Trip

is this a wind up?

Its mid winter and the first thaw in over a month

Ill take a tank please

Why not treat yourself!

What you need chewkw is a good charity shop, bargains galore and more choice than any samey repetetive high street!
:lol:

They are really good. Delays are pretty much guaranteed to be down to the shop.

Fishers on the other hand……….oh dont get me started!

NS Bikes what CRC pump out are polish

Endura really aint worth the money in my experience, down to the chamoix being in the wrong place mainly and resulting in the back of your butt being half on and half off the pad. My decathlon ones are better and that is saying something as their fitting is normally terrible too

yes

Orange – Yesterdays technology at tomorrows prices!

This is a summary of our summer road trip round the alps which consisted of us joining guys who did the mega then doing a 2 week trip in an LDV with a couple of cars tagging along

Video instead of pics
Video here

Day 1 : Manc to Geneva
Arrive at the airport to find the flight delayed, which is probably a good thing as the word from base camp was that a land slide had occurred on the road from Huez, trapping Liam and red leader. Eventually arrive at Geneva and do some car park bike box re-assembly, red leader turns up about 1am looking a little bit worn out.

Day 2 : Huez and Vernosc
Head up the switch backs to Huez to hook up with the gypsies camp, things look mostly the same as every year although a lot of folk did comment about the volume of snow on track as well as some sanitisation of the mega track. Word on the street was that Trig had slept in a disabled toilet the preceding night, following on from racing the mega then racing Sue’s mate Meg up the 21 switch backs on a road bike (which he lost for a bet!); have seen Trig look better truth be told!

After a few warm up runs on the bitch track we head down to complete the obligitory 21 switch back challenge, except upon reaching the centre of Huez we find a dh track snaking through the village and down the hill. A pretty sweet race off ensues through Huez down and along the hill besides the main road. The course is brand new and has a number of tight dusty turns before dropping through some wooded sections. Hit the road about 1/3 of the way down to the bottom and meet a French chap on a Yeti who claims to know a track running all the way to the valley bottom. A few of us set off on the leisure ride while the rest roll down the road. The track is amazing, kind of like the bottom woods on the mega but a lot less used. Flying through woods at full tilt on a bed of leaves and mulch makes for some interesting line choices, the french dude on the free ride Yeti hands all our assess to us on a plate with typical french no fear down the fast stuff.

Roll into the van and drive to vernosc, manage to find a sweet camping spot next to the river by the lift and have the first of many glacial showers! Hook up with Nick and George, two chaps from Cardiff who are doing a full season road trip. There tolerance to the rolling TS catastrophe seems to pay off and they decide to join us for the trip,

Day 3 : 2 Alps
Typical day in the 2 alps with lots of death cross down the super fast red run and vernosc track. I think most people loved the twisty red run with its flat out turns, although coming close to taking out a small group of French riders who chose to stop on the fastest section is something I would rather forget! Sorted a load of food and booze out and sent it down the lift to Vernosc before loading up and heading for St P.

Day 4 : St p
After the obligatory flan eating comp, which pitted Salford and Trig in a battle of whit and flan eating agility, we headed up SP for a blast. This place is rude in every aspect, a euphoric mix of UK style tech dh cut up with some smooth high speed alpine sections. Spent a good while doing massive skids around a burm for Andy and his camera, some pretty sweet shots came out. Packed up and headed on the long drive for Pila via Beaufortain and the first of many box wine van drives.

Day 6 : Beaufortain

Arrive at one of the 3 resorts that make up the Beaufortain at some on godly hour in the morning, to the calls of “Roast Beuf” from the locals in the sleepy village bar. Drive the LDV up possibly the shadiest road to we have attempted that basically led to no where and involved almost reversing off a small cliff. Notice an interesting change in the LDV’s passengers, they appear to have become a bunch of zombies. Pitch up at the wrong chair lift and watch Sue steal things from Alex.

Wake up and roll back down to the main town and up to the correct lift up the next valley (there are three areas to the resort, each of which open on different days). The track is brand new, quite free ridey but pretty rad. The lift on the other hand is nothing short of abysmal. This can sort of be forgiven as it was the first few weeks of operation as an mtb venue. Basically think of the french queuing system and lift assistants that are too small / weak to load bikes on fast enough. Track has some large gap jump at the bottom, one of the biggest things I have hit in a while. Chained Liam and Matt over it to check speed, Liam comes off mid air and I shit myself, somehow manage to not run him over.

After chatting to the lift dudes we hear of a dh track leading back down the valley to Beaufortain. Set off down the road and yoof crashes on a bend, causing a number of cars to complete an emergency stop. All is well in the end although apparently the drivers have looked happier. Another chain of death down the snyde track, quite similar to the one at Huez (i.e. flat out through alpine forests and mulch). Take part in a 5 person pile up on one of the bends (video to follow) and watch yoof go spannering off into the undergrowth down one of the faster bits. Have a ghetto wash under the town water pump and set off for Pila

Day 7 and 8 : Pila Rice
Pila is probably the fav for most on the trip, there is something quite special about riding actual WC tracks, especially ones like Pila. Best way to describe it is a mixture of fast sweeping turns and mega steep tech wooded sections. That said there is a lot of riding at Pila outside the WC track, a few red and blue tracks off the same lift as the WC track as well as some fully bad ass runs down to Aosta. The runs to Aosta were a highlight for me, they weren’t really what you would describe as free ride tracks (similar to those we rode at Huez). They were actual DH tracks that went on for a good 15mins, truly amazing. To top it all off the runs finish in the actual city of Aosta, so after a 15 min badass dh run you roll through the city to the world biggest supermarket (probably not that much of an exaggeration). The chairlift then goes right back to the top at Pila across part of the city and over the main motorway, pretty cool.

We were ejected from our lodgings on the village green on the evening of the first night by the local fuzz, that said the officer did try to direct us to a suitable location outside the city limits. We ended up camping next to a church hidden in the middle of a forest, was a pretty nice spot actually. After another day smashing down Pila and Aosta we packed up and headed for Les Gets to ditch M.Winky

Days 8 and 9 : PDS

Am not sure if we brought a few too many preconceptions into Les Gets as the Zombie bus came to a drum and bass fueled halt outside Boomerang during the wee hours of day 8. It was good / bad to see nothing has really changed in Les Gets during out 4 year sabbatical from the resort. Boomerang certainly hadn’t changed much, neither had Igloo for that matter. I have to put a shout out to Sue at this point, she spent the night stealing drinks from young boys. One group were seen leaving early bemoaning the fact they now had now money left between them because someone had stole all their drinks. In any other town we would probably have felt bad, but Les Gets is kind of like the bitch of Alpine MTB resorts and should be treated accordingly.

We were ejected from our lodgings in the car park by the lake during the mid afternoon by some rather angry looking police men. They gave us a lecture in french about not showing respect and told us to be gone shortly or else. The above may or may not having something to do with us rocking up in the early hours the night before blasting dj Hype, seemed a fair cop. Me and Andy bought a lift pass and managed two runs of les gets 1. I had thought I was running better forks these days than I did when we used to summer in Les Gets, that was why my arms didn’t hurt. Turns out this was all rubbish, the main reason I no longer get arm pump is because we don’t ride in Les Gets. You forget how big the ruts are, if anything they are bigger than ever before because so many idiots seem willing to pay to ride this shit. Fair play I suppose, keeps them out of the good resorts!

Drove to Les Linderes via an amazing lake (pics to follow), was nice having a bath for once rather than a ghetto shower. Rode Chatel the next day only to discover the Anne Caro track has been partially removed. That was a bit gutting as it was a personal fav of mine. Had a good afternoon hitting up the French Cup track, you could easily have a fun day on that one. By the end of the day we were all reminded why we never want to ride the PDS again. Packed up and headed for Val D’isere

Day 10 Val D’isere
Val D’Isere is probably the poshest looking resort the LDV has rolled into. Sadly, MTB doesn’t figure that high on the list of activities at this resort. There was a red and a blue run marked out, probably the dullest tracks we rode in all our trips to the alps.

Thankfully there French Championships had taken place the day before and the track they used was fully sick. After a bit of a leisure ride from the top the track cut down on of the steeper pistes in the resort with a collection of large hucks to off camber and bonkers loose dust steep sections. Was the sort of track that was OK to ride down but very hard to ride fast.

Packed up after the lifts shut and headed for Pra Loup across a 2700m col. The LDV was loving it!

Day 11 VARS
VARS VARS VARS VARS!

This place is amazing, we had a BBQ, that is all

Day 12 Pra Loup

Most have rode Pra Loup before, its a pretty sweet venue actually. The newer masters track seemed to get heavily sessioned, as well as the really steep wooded black run to the bottom of the free ride park. Trig, Bland and Andy went out for a meal after riding was done and drank a load of this funny looking desert appartife. This seemed to have a strange effect on each of them, it caused Trig to jump of a big bridge into a lake (circa 50ft high) and Bland to pass out on the floor unable to get up. Eventually we arrived in Les Ores where peoples hang overs took hold

not a MTB log but something to get lost in for an hour

The Blazing Saddles[/url]

This one was on a riding holiday!

If you were wondering, this is the CRC family tree, i.e. all these are owned or distributed by them

720 Armour
Airwave
Answer
Azonic
Black Market Bikes
Blackspire
Blur
Brand-X
Brake Authority
Brave
Brunox
Controltech
Creme
Da Bomb
Deity Components
Dirty Dog
Electra
EVS
Fire Eye
Gaerne
Ghost
Goodridge
Hayes
Hurricane Components
IXS
Lapierre
Leatt
Loeka
Lynskey
Manitou
Matrix Concepts
Michelin
NC-17
No Fear
No Flats
NS Bikes
Nuke Proof
Octane One
Point One Racing
Pro-Lite
PZ Racing
Ragley
RockGardn
Royal
Samui
Speed Stuff
Stendec
Straitline
Sun Ringle
Tomac
Urge
Viper
WTB
X-Tools

Some of you got the gist of teh post, most as expected didnt.

It was regarding CRC as a distributor, not a shop. We have had the whole issue of how good/bad CRC are as a shop before.

However one thing i didnt say was how much of a threat to LBS and other distributors is the fact that they distribute and retail the same products so folk cant compete on price.

Anyhow, the thread was about the size and number of brands they distribute and even own (nuke proof and Brand X are two for example, Nuke Proof sold teh name some 8 years ago – nothing to do with the original product if you were wondering, just their brand name for cheap taiwanese imports like superstar – but they are upfront about the origin of the product)

I think the issue is that folk only see CRC as a retailler with a website and not what goes on behind it

Just wait till the yanks get a taste for Diesel, then were fecked!

Hopefully the germans will continue making a fortune selling them old petrol technology and drag it out as long as possible before they decide to introduce the modern diesed to them.

If diesel is only 20% of the fraction of fuel oil then thats where teh issues start

I think teh first one is ok, well they will post your music up for free download and give you next to nothing, prob want some rights to it so id check the small print.

The second one sounds like a lure to draw you in then drop the “oh we will need £xxxxx to carry on” so id avoid that one

Have a go at using teh motor insurance bureau to recoup your losses especially if he was uninsured.

My wife pulled out of a junction into a car that was speeding last year, she gave false details, turned out had no insurance etc and that was that. Anyhow, got £950 off the MIB, sold the knackered Cougar on ebay for £350 and only paid £850 for it a few months before, so worked out quite well in the end.

Electric EG2’s all the way

if you have 6-7K to spend id strongly recommend going to an auction (decent one like BCA) and getting something that has came to teh end of its 3 year lease.

Chances of something being wrong are low and you are just missing out on the middle man, afterall, 90% of forecourt cars are from auctions.

I have teh specialized ones in the size above and wear them with seal skins for extra warmth.

They are winter boots so get them a size up as you will still need to have snug socks on as they arent massively warm otherwise, they just keep you dry

Just think about the level of arrogance, of self importance, of sheer entitlement that would allow you to think that not getting free tuition is in any way equivalent to the plight of starving millions!

not really in context is it. reminds me of getting told off when at primary school for not eating all my dinner as there are kids starving in africa – well send them it!

Since 1998 at least there have been marches agains tuition fees, this is teh FIRST to get any exposure, so yeah a bit of criminal damage goes a long way.

I support them, the only other option is moving to wales 3 years before the kids go to uni so you get it free.

Its about time the government had some proper sh1t for acting like a load of lying b*****ds, no one else stands up for anything? Remember the fuel protests when the price went over £1/litre, well that came to nothing did it and as such another one they win.

Keep causing chaos every week students, next try all the local govt offices, redecorate them!

That Independant website is horrendous, whats going on with the image at the sides of teh screen?

Im just short of 6 foot and have the medium one, and tbh, id get the large as im on the limit. It fits me great but add 3 inch and it will be getting small id reckon.

Lovely bike, fancy the 853 now though