Loving mine with Marzocchi AM1's set at 150mm :-)

From what I remember of the MBR test, they liked the bike but hated the Lyric 2 step fork which was why it got low marks.

To give you an insight in to the sort of guy Iain was, let me tell you what happened a few years ago.

Sillykents went to Scotland on a biking trip and on the second day one of us had a crash entering the EWOK village at Glentress. Carls ankle was certainly broken and whilst the rest of us were flapping about, Iain calmly took charge in organising the ambulance, reassuring Carl, and phoning his wife (a paramedic) for expert advice is how to treat Carl. We had borrowed a jacket from some lads to keep Carl warm, and arranged to give it back to them at the trail centre. However by the time we got back to the car park, the lads had long gone. But Iain had told the lads they would get their jacket back that day. So when we got home and everyone else was exhausted and crashed out on the sofas, Iain did a 100 mile round trip to return the jacket, because that was the right thing to do, and he always did the right thing.

Just an example of the sort of guy he was. I really miss him.

Sutts, I knew Iain reasonably well and went to his funeral. It was truly moving and Natalie was so brave. I only live down the road in Maidstone, so if you want any help with the sale, please let me know. I'm not working at the moment so have some time on my hands. Email in profile.

Boris

I'm still around and riding Bedgebury (with BFCC) and Barming woods pretty regularly.

Who are you hillvanquisher? Do I know you? Happy to meet up and ride anyway, and BP may be back on the scene soon…!

Boris

My USE one is fine. Solid and goes up and down when I hit bumps. That's about it really…

I went from a 300D for biking and a 30D for everything else to a 500D. Same lenses, but the 500D is WAY better than either of the older cameras. Metering is better, shot processing is better even in RAW as the digic 4 processor is a huge step up.

Faster, wide aperture lenses are fine, but you lose depth of field. The 300D does have RAW, but processing speed and write speed is very slow. Start up time is slow. Download speed is very, very slow. There are fewer options in the RAW mode compared with the 500D.

If you can, go with the 500D, I have never regretted it for a second, and my photos are way better than before. HD video is great as well.

Mojo, or Specialized UK can service these shocks. But your choice of replacement will work well.

My first pair lasted thousands of miles. Went to buy another pair and the guy in the shop told me there weren't made very well now so he'd stopped selling them. I've heard this from other sources now as well.

Shame, they were great…

I don't want to be thinking about traction setting/lockout levers all the time.

Then buy a Spesh Epic.

Some will be genuine, some not. The mark up on these cards though is huge. I have a friend who worked at Jessops, and through his staff discount I bought a 30D a few years ago along with a 2gb Extreme 2 card. Jessops actually sold the camera at a small loss, but the card which retails at £120 was sold to me at staff discount (cost +10%) for £25…

I entered it 4 years ago but had to pull out through illness. I will be having another go this year though! Which route are you doing? I can help you on the route which goes through Kent to Calais as it virtually goes past my house!

That will be fine.

It totally depends on the level of culpability of the employer. Did he have risk assessments, method statements, training records etc. Have you lost much in the way of pay? If you were off work for 3 days or more then the accident must have been reported (RIDDOR Regs). What is the long term prognosis?

To (not) answer your question, anything between a few hundred if you have been fully paid and the company did everything right, to tens of thousands if you will have long term problems and the company did everything wrong. Big payouts are still pretty rare though despite what the media and ambulance chasers will tell you.

It is of course very personal, but Ian Banks wrote a book called Raw Spirit in which he goes on a road trip to find the best whisky in Scotland which is on general sale – no "100 year old stored in a crystal bottle in a cellar encased in peat" at £100000 a bottle stuff. His conclusion was the Glenfiddich 18 year old was the best you could get.

Dear God, there are some appalling shops in there very high up the list. Does "highly qualified" mean "up their own ar*es so can't be bothered to actually sell anything or even acknowledge their customers"?

For that money the Troute absolutely kicks its ass.

I saw 5 cars abandoned this morning. All were BMW's with RWD. No traction you see :-) Really enjoyed the guy in the Evo 7 who braked hard and a whole roof load of snow slid on to his windscreen. I got a few brownie points by getting off my bike and helping him clear it off.

I love snow :-))

But half my GF's home town is missing! (Banchory – not the smallest town in the country…)

Open fires can actually be negatively efficient as the heat goes straight up the chimney and cold air is sucked in to the room to replace it. A wood burner can be 80% efficient as you have a big old lump of metal in the room which is 250' or so. This acts as a very powerful radiator. Mine is a Clearview, it's very clean, very efficient and at around 5kw I heat a 3 bed house with it.

Try here very wide range and nice friendly people!

isn't it one of theose homeopathic things ? In any case, it's actually poisonous. IMO the best way to escape depression is to fix your broken thinking processes as enabled by Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. Medicines are ony a stopgap measure, and merely serve to reinforce a dependency mindset.

Not quite. St John's wort isn't homeopathic in the sense of low concentration yadda, yadda. It is a more natural remedy than some of the chemical formulas. Yes it is poisonous, but so is water in high enough doses…

Carl YGM (in a minute or so!)

Use a Cycraguard thing which is like a crudcatcher but with rubber spacers here[/url]. I use it with a Mucky Nutz fender bender, and it really is the best combination – more effective than a steerer mounted guard and you get total protection.

Wooly socks and overshoes keeps my feet warm whatever. I like BBB overshoes for toughness and cheapness.

All 9 speed chains work with 9 speed blocks.

Higher quality means lower weight, and may mean longer lasting but that is probably more down to conditions and care than anything else as unless you go to XTR or equivalent. all the sprockets are steel.

Try British Cycling
cycling clubs

I've got an unused Spesh Airtool you can have for a tenner posted. Email in profile if you are interested.

Simon

When I had it done I had to use a council approved contractor for the dropped kerb. Kerb plus about a 3x5m area of tarmac was around £2500.

I've only used Canon, but recently changed my 30D for a 500D. The 500 wipes the floor with the 30, I've yet to be disappointed with it in any way. The video is great for short clips and although I agree about having a high MP count is not the be all and end all, it means I can get better results using a wider angle and then cropping than using the full range on my cheapy Sigma 70-300. The kit lens is pretty good as well.

Having said that, I think these days it comes down to what feels best in your hands and whether you find the menus intuitive. Excellent image quality is something you can pretty much take for granted.

39/23 is what the TdF guys use on Alpe d'uez. This only goes to around 10%. Are you Alberto Contador? If not then yes, you might get up 15% hills on a 39/23, but you will probably get up them faster on a slightly more sensible gear.

Get Muck Boots.

Excellent quality, very comfy and not silly priced.

I have a XT rear mech on my pub bike which is now at least 18 years old. It did quite a few years on a MTB before I moved it over.

Ladders are legal. If it's a one off job of low duration (>15 minutes), there is no problem. Providing of course the ladder is suitable, has been checked for damage and the engineer has been trained in how to use it.

Regulations are laws BTW. Guidance is like the highway code – you can't be prosecuted for breaking it, but if you break it and something bad happens, you'd better have a pretty good reason…

Boris

(Member of the Chartered Institute of Occupational Safety and Health)

I got mine on Tuesday as promised, and yeah it is tiny – much smaller than I thought. The quality is spot on and the switch is really positive. Once charged it lit up my garage a treat!
Nightride last night and it really is amazing. No hotspots, VERY bright and it makes a helmet lamp redundant unless you are riding switchbacks. I had an Exposure Enduro Maxx for comparison and with the Trout on full, the Maxx adds nothing, you can't tell if it is on. If I'm being ultra critical, I still can't find anything to dislike about it!
I'd love to see a magazine comparison test, because I can't believe there is anything better out there at any money.

Yes. Loved it, my favourite country after NZ. Cuzco is brilliant, just get in one of their tiny taxis and assume the crash position – mine crashed 3 times in ten minutes! But no-one seems to care as it's all low speed stuff like bumper cars. Food is great if you are a bit careful where you eat. Take dollars – worth much more black market than official exchange. Take alcohol hand gel and use it whenever you eat – I had no trouble with stomach problems and neither did anyone else I was with. People are so friendly outside of Lima and even the poorest wil offer you hospitality. They also tend to have a great sense of humour!

I was in the same position three years ago. Always tired, got a cold every 6-8 weeks. I was eating a balanced diet, plenty of lean protein, fruit and veg etc. Went to see a properly qualified nutritionist and she just tweaked bits of my diet and put me on some supplements short term aimed at boosting my immune system. The result is that I feel loads better and now get around one cold every ten months.

The thing is everyone is different and if I ate the same diet as Mr "just eat a balanced diet", my body wouldn't necessarily absorb the same nutrients and vitamins as him. My body may also require more of certain things than him for lifestyle or genetic reasons.

So it's got to be worth a try, just do some research first and get a properly qualified one, not just a quack.

Yes, I have one and it works a treat. I have a crud guard type thing as well which was great at keeping the crap off me, but the mud still flew off the front tyre in to my eyes. The mucky nutz thing stops that completely.

This thing:

[/url]Mucky Nutz

is fantastic. Really works and very light. Plus you can use it on Spesh forks which have a solid crown with no hole down the steerer.

Of course Jenson sometimes comes across as a cock. That's because he is a human being. And find me a single person on this planet who wasn't a cock when at school.

I used to know Jenson a little bit when we were both racing karts – he is a bit younger than me so we were never in the same race. He was always a cut above the rest and both he and his dad were really decent people. I have never met Hamilton, but he and his dad don't seem to be as "natural" probably due to being groomed from a very early age.

It's a bit like Prost and Senna. Senna could wring a performance out of any car, Prost needed it to be set up exactly or he struggled. I think that if the car is perfect for him, Jenson is as quick as anyone, when the car is not so good he struggles.

But Jenson can overtake better than anyone in F1 these days. It's funny how Damon Hill was criticised for not overtaking although starting on the front row of the grid meant he never had to, but Jenson is criticised for qualifying badly and working his way through the field.

Anyway, I am really happy for him, it's thoroughly deserved, and I suspect now the pressure is off, he will go even faster.

All brakes are good these days (from a committed Shimano fan). Buy the ones you like the look of the most, but maybe consider that mineral oil is "nicer" than DOT fluids.