When I walked past the shop a couple of years back it has closed up in Miami? The shop was just a look in museum, sign in the window said they’d gone their separate ways on new projects?

My son is 18 months now and getting quick on his Toddlebike[/url], planning to get him a balance bike soon for outdoors now the snows melted. He’s an absolute speed freak on his Bobbycar lol.

So so many on the net, but this website looks helpful: Holiday-Rentals

Great result then, I’d have taken the £50 off and lost out on the new frame!!!! Just goes to show…

Hold on right there…….. Snoop was a she?!?!?!?

Well I never, I must live in a cave or somat….

Thanks AlexSimon, half way through Breakin Bad after The Wire and Mad Men, so I will watch these next.

As for XC in Sweden, it’s 99% lycra crew, I know as I’m one of them!

Sweden hasn’t really clocked onto all mountain type riding yet, of course there is the small numbers who ride it, but it’s lightyears behind the UK.

I think mainly because the XC culture hasn’t yet developed beyond lycra, and the same could be said for trail development.

But it’s changing, I see more AM bikes being bought and sold, mainly around the big cities or the bike parks. It’ll take longer down south in Skåne because it’s almost completely flat, which kind of make 5-6″ travel AM FS bikes pointless.

The bike club scene is all lycra; road, XC, and a little CX.

All that said, the cycling in Sweden is absoltely fantastic, I can ride singletrack for hours without seeing another person. Just no it’s amazing as the ground is frozen solid so it’s like riding on sandpaper, super fast and fun.

Not worth visiting the south of Sweden for DH unless you have no choice. Vallåsen is the best option down south, great lift and facillities, plus some of the trails are really good (not just saying that because I dug them lol).

Vånga hill is smaller but run and maintained by a dedicated crew, they use a button lift, basically you slip the button between your legs whilst sat on the bike and ride up the hill. Easy once you’ve done it a few times but not as nice as being sat on a lift seat.

Åre is as described by GEDA, it’s ok but no Morzine etc. If I was heading up to ride DH then I would head to Hafjell[/url]
. This is generally recognised to be a better DH riding venue.

As for getting to Åre, most from outside Sweden fly into Stockholm and drive up, but it’s quite a drive at ~4 hours. You could take an internal flight to Åre as there is a small airport there, but the cost can vary etc: Swedavia[/url]

From personel experience I would say carbon railed saddles and the off road don’t mix. I broke the rails and wings on a carbon railed Arione after a small off on the XC bike. Expensive lesson learnt.

Liking the yellow cable kit, you’re just missing the yellow bottle cages now, put them on mine and they suit the scheme.

Strangely I’m not so keen on the SRAM double taps, just don’t feel as clean changing compared to the DuraAce & Campag I’m use to. Will probable swap it out this year, fit the DuraAce from my road bike and upgrade that.

Apart from that the bike is great, although it took quite a bit of fettling to stop the discs squeaking, then again I mainly use it as a winter road bike so perhaps it needs some mud to bed them in properly.

😕

So why do you want to change then, I seem to have missed the point?

Scales aren’t mine but a neighbours and we also weighed his brand new Trek FS 29er (new superfly) and my bike was nearly 2kgs lighter! Just the wheel setup alone were ~1.5kg lighter.

No salt pinching etc required.

No BS here: Details of my build

Cut from that thread:

Weighs in at 9.76kgs, major weight saving is in the wheels:
Front wheel complete is 1.2kgs (Inlc disc & bolts, plus UST Racing Ralph)
Rear wheel complete is 1.6kgs (inlc disc, bolts, cassette, QR skewer & UST Racing Ralph).

Watched all the Wire series last year and was very impressed, currently working my way through Mad Men and also very impressed.

Giant Anthem = 21.5lbs, not bad for a ally FS 3×9 setup.

Giant Anthem X 29er frame (L) with Fox Float RP23 Boostvalve
Fox F29 FIT RLC forks, 15QR thru axle and tapered steerer, 100mm travel
Giant FSA tapered headset
XTR SIS gear cable set
Shimano BB71 Press-Fit Bottom Bracket
FSA K-Force Light XC Chainset MegaExo
XTR pedals
Thomson masterpiece seatpost
Ritchey WCS Carbon Flat Bar
Ritchey WCS 4Axis Matrix Stem
Hope mono mini pro’s in Team Issue Green, Ti bolted
X0 Twist grip changers
X0 Rear mech with KCNC jockey wheels
XTR front mech
KMC SL chain
160mm Ashima rotors, Ti bolted
PG990 cassette
American Classic hubs (15mm front, QR rear)
DT Super Comp spokes
Stans Crest rims
Racing Ralphs 2.25s UST front and back
Fizik Arione saddle

Mintman, I worked in the special procurement team to bring the parts in for the first WR21 engines, it was in a mess and we had about a year to sort it out, back in 2001, small world eh.

I worked for RR between 96 and 02, in several different areas over civil, military, power generation and naval, Derby Sinfin (PCF, Morelane, & Rainsway, Hucknall, Bristol, etc. It truely shaped the worker I am today, and funded/aided my degree.

A fantastic company but and I love the product, but the PLC environment can be tough on workers sometimes.

I bought one last Sept, and with a 10% discount when bought on the net, absolutely fantastic value for money and a great ride to. I would have also prefered the Pro spec, but to be honest once you’re out rising everything works just as well. I plan to upgrade it as time goes by anyway as I buy new stuff for my road bike.

Just get over the brand association not being cool enough etc etc…

Great bike and ride for the money, would suit your need perfectly although I agree with globalti and would never give it back to Halfords to look after it, even if I could.

Here’s mine:

Tazzy, is that the old or the new AC design? I’ve heard there were some issues with the old ones but not with the new.

I would recommend American Classics, been Just Riding Along built me a set of AC hubs into some Crest 29ers and they are fantastic, light but strong. I see them sitting inbetween Hope and DT, much lighter than Hope but more expensive, yet cheaper than DT but the same weight, if not a little lighter. Been very happy with mine.

Couldn’t say no to the Boardman, top VFM in my book, £810 all in.

Did a 5 hour road ride on it last weekend around the Peak and it road really nice, just had to tweak the brakes along the way to stop some silly pad/disc rub.

Very happy with it:

New toy being road tested, got to say after 5 hours on the road I’m impressed, bar a little disc/calliper tweaking along the way to stop pad rubbing squeaks.

They all look nice Organic, but they’re all ~£1200, the Boardman at £810 (with the 10% discount) is at my limit really.

Is there anything to compete with the boardman disc cx on price/spec?

I have the same question right now, seriously tempted to buy a new CX bike for winter riding duties, but I want them with discs 😳

Boardman CX seems a fair deal, but would prefer it with Shimano gears really.

Any other ideas? Plus I need to buy it this weekend from the Derby area, as I’m only in the UK this weekend.

This rehab guide helped me a lot, I get tennis elbow badly once every few years, I follow this guide to get it back to normal asap:
HERE

I find this type of arm support works best:

I would say that prams are like bikes, either you buy 2 or more depending on the purpose, or 1 do it all that isn’t perfect for everything.

Buying 2nd hand is a really good idea, but I found 2nd hand prices can stay quite high, especially for the popular brands like Bugaboo.

I would recommend buying 2, one for comfort, walking, off road, and the 2nd for city/traveling.

For off road we have this: Brio Happy

Or this has a similar chassis: Emmaljunga Edge Duo Combi

For the city we bought a Bugaboo Bee+, the wife likes it because it looks nice but it’s not exactly light and doesn’t drive great. I wanted to buy a Maclaren Triumph as they are light, compact and not too expensive (unlike the Bugaboo).

Since buying the Brio I’ve fancied a Phil & Ted’s or a Baby Jogger, but that phase has past and the Brio’s chassis ride in my view is better than the rest.

Like bikes, it’s a lot down to personal preference, so try as many as you can before you buy.

I was in Seoul earlier this year and wanted to ride MTB whilst there, perks of the job etc as I always try and ride whatever country I’m visiting.

In the end I got a ride out with a US guy now living in Seoul, he personally loaned me a bike and took me out to show me his local trails, and all on a Tuesday night. The guy was a legend and I was extremely grateful, wouldn’t even take some beer money for his time and efforts.

Your best bet is to sign up with MTB Korea Yahoo group, introduce yourself and ask what going on whilst your there. They are a great bunch and if you’re nice someone should be able to help out.

Next time I go I’ll be sure to stay the weekend so I can ride with the group further afield, but I had a fantastic evenings ride bombing round the urbanish trails on the shirts of Seoul finishing off with an ace decent in the dark with big lights.

Lots of great riding in South Korea, if you know where to go etc.

Good luck and have fun.

To be fair he sounds exactly like my little guys, he’s 13 months now and like an angry eel to change nappies, or put on clothes, in fact during most activities lol. We just try and refocus him on something else, once he does he imediately switches off from whatever he was upset about.

Sounds like your childminder needs to CMTFU 8)

I’m 6’2″ and went from a 26″ Giant Anthem to a 29″ Giant Anthem and it felt completely natural from the 1st ride. Doubt I’ll ever go back to 26″ now.

The again, I spend as much time on my road bikes as I do on my MTB, so maybe the switch was helped by this.

Can’t go wrong with an Trace for a XC do it all day bike, but the Anthem would be a more XC mile munching choice. However, you’d be lucky to get either built on your budget.

My winter road bike is an old Cresent CroMo cross frame, but now has mudguards fitted.

Never owned 355s so can’t compare, but I guess it also depends what spokes you build with. I run DT Super Comps, AC hubs and Crest rims, extremely impressed, light, stiff and not overly expensive, can’t go wrong.

ZTR Crest, end of 8)

Having been lucky enough to drive just about all the Koeniseggs this is still my fav, just loved driving this on full slicks down the local lanes around the factory 8)

Shame it never made it into Le Mans, had a lot of potential, just needed the backing and track time.

And after driving a 1000bhp K’egg down the test track, all these other pretenders are just that, that’s the difference between a supercar and a hypercar 😉

I’m still in love….

I’m watching on this stream.

What field of work are you in?

It sounds like you need to look at your CV again, do you use the same CV for every application? It is best to tailor the CV for each application, making it suit and applicable for the job you are applying for. E.g. if you are applying for a management job then quote your relevant experiences, but if you’re applying for a general office job then don’t go on about your management skills, concentrate on your office skills etc.

Normally I’d say it’ll take ~6 months to find a new job, might be quicker if you are lucky or longer if not.

Have you met with any agencies yet? Whilst this is a chore it can help to get you back up to speed with the job climate and they can sometimes help with CV feedback etc. Also, if you develop a good active working relationship with good agancies it will really help.

When I was in the UK working, there was 2 agencies I’d talk to at least every 6 months even if I wasn’t looking for a new job. This relationship would then really help if/when I was looking to move jobs.

No easy answer I’m afriad, but just stay positive, keep networking, tailor your CV and you’re on the right track.

Good luck.

Nope, only ever use Oury lock ons on my DH bike.

Nows thats cool 8)