Another vote here to have it re-set. Apprearances matter to the ladies and although she’ll appreciate the history of the rock, she won’t appreciate the look of the ring as much if she has a preference for silver/platinum colour over gold.

For our engagement, I surprised my missus with the diamond but then let her decide on the design of the ring. We got it made by a jeweller in my hometown rather than some high street store, to add a bit of local sentimentality to the story. (I think it was about £500 to have it set in platinum.) She ended up with something that she really likes to look at, as well as appreciate the meaning behind it.

My missus is 5’5″ but with a shorter-than-average inside leg. She recently got a Specialized Safire, medium frame but still loads of standover room (standover height is 27.5″). Thats a good bit shorter than a few other ladies frames she tried.

She hasn’t tested it properly yet, but its 120mm both ends and only 28lb (“Comp” version with bash guard and 2.3″ Nevegals).

Besides, if your Heckler is 34lb, there’s probably a few other components you could lighten (without affecting reliability) to lose a couple of pounds off its overall weight right?

For sure. I’d love to replace the coil Pike426 or the WTB DualDuty wheelset but the cost would be significant and this summer’s bike budget is miniscule! The DHX coil/air swap wouldn’t cost anything.

Mmmm, maybe I’ll just have to stick with it and get fitter.

Stitching quality is poor but you get the idea.

Big Bear in mid-May was good fun, not sure what the snow cover in April will be like. Only 2hrs from LA I think?

Anyone take a less experienced partner to Whistler? or any laydeez in da house want to share their experiences of riding in Whistler/Canada?

My wife loves it, she’s done several XC trips to the Alps before but cannot jump and still had a lot of fun in the park on a XC hardtail (FS preferred though!). Green trails are a good introduction to the gradient (smooth hard-pack) and most of the blue trails will be rideable by people with alpine experience. Just be careful on the fast blues like Crank it Up, all the tables/jumps can be ridden wheels-on-the-ground but you have to control your speed well to do so (my wife witnessed the result of not doing so and it wasn’t pretty). Get a full-facer for the bike park whatever your skill level, you can rent them in town for approx $15/day.

Lost Lake trails are good tech XC for an hour or 2, tons of other stuff in the valley beyond that but its another step-up (especially if you’re not used to Shore riding). Head south to Squamish if you want to ride longer XC trails at a slightly easier level (although there’s also plenty there thats hard/extreme too).

There are some skills area in the park, but it might seem like a bit of a waste of lift-ticket-time. If you are in Vancouver, there are free skills parks on the North Shore (Inter-river) and Burnaby (SFU).

If your dates match, then your partners could try this. My wife did it last year:
http://www.dirtseries.com/index.php

Info on rear-mech choice and chain length: http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=284688%5D

This is the Inter-River skills park in North Vancouver, which I think Jay Hoots designed:

http://www.nsmba.bc.ca/pictures/traildays/interriver2007/

All the North Shore is graded green to black. Far right of the picture on the bank are 3 drop-offs, again green to black (1ft > 4ft). Behind the North Shore are the dirt jumps, again easy to big. What you can’t see is that behind the camera is a full size BMX track.

A few miles away in Burnaby is another Hoots-designed course.
http://www.bmba.ca/node/412

That’s got a dirt pumptrack and a wooden one!

My uni digs from 10yrs ago, somebody’s left a wrecked van right where we had the BBQ!

Trentside, Notts

as are front brakes only, on the wrong side of the bars

My only consolation is that I’m currently in Vancouver, so the thief was probably expecting the front brake to be on the left. I really, really like to think that he might have gone over the bars before he found out it was on the right.

you shouldn’t really have let them go for a pootle round town on your fancy mountain bikes. That’s quite a naive thing to do. i wouldn’t even take my bike into town. it stays in the house unless i’m taking it mountain biking

I know, I know. The wife and I know to never leave such bikes unguarded in town but my sister asked to take the bikes for a ride around the local park one day so we happily agreed, no problem. The next day they took them to the museum without saying anything, so we didn’t get a chance to warn them about such things and as non-bikers they assumed a strong lock would be enough. Ha ha, if only!

My sister & boyfriend were visiting last week and borrowed both my old Merlin Malt and my wife’s Giant XTC to do some sightseeing around town. Locked them to a bike rack outside a museum, 15mins later a dude turns up with boltcroppers to snip the Krptonite steel cable and has them away in seconds. Witnesses saw them go but didn’t do anything, police took statements but I know we won’t see them again.

So its the Heckler and only the Heckler for me now, and time to go bike shopping for the missus.

As my sister put it: “The good news is that you don’t have to clean your bike this weekend; the bad news is that you don’t have a bike anymore.”

Large frame, 6ft tall, currently 90mm but getting a 70mm soon to try that out. I’m also hoping that it compensates for my (lack of) skill on front wheel lifts.

My wife is 5’5″ but has a short inside leg so a low standover height is crucial for her too. I asked about this a few days ago (thread here) and was also suggested to try the Safire, Titus and Orange Diva.

I’ve done some web research since then and the other bike to look at could be the Rocky Mountain Altitude(clicky). Standover height is the same as the Safire, but not as good as the Titus Motolite XS or Orange Diva Short.

Matt, sorry, we’re in Vancouver at the moment.

Splat – Nice idea, Norco’s are easy to find here but I think that a freeride bike would be overkill for most of her riding. It’d be fun for a few days at Whistler though!

Sue_W:

it sounds as though your partner has relatively short legs and therefore a ‘longer than ususal for a woman’ torso. In which case you might find that a unisex / blokes bike might be better as women specific bikes are designed to accomodate relatively long legs and shorter torsos.

Correct, she’s tried small frames before and in general they’re too short in the top tube (even with long stems etc). Her previous bike was a 17″ Giant XTC hardtail, which was a good fit and the top-tube sloped down steeply to give good standover. Unfortunately that got nicked last week. :o(

Thanks all for the suggestions. Orange Diva Long looks good in measurement, but my wife is errrm… not keen on the boxy swingarm. ;o) I’ll follow up on the Safire and get her to try some Stumpjumpers again. Thanks.

Avoriaz 07. Came flying down that hill in the background and hit the puddle, without realising that there was a large tree root underwater with its tip perfectly positioned to stab my front wheel. Straight over the bars into the puddle in front of 6 friends (naturally).

Vancouver Festival of Light:

Vancouver Zombies ;o)

And 2 photos of the missus biking:

Sorry, not for sale! (…at a realistic price anyway)

As another kayaker, I can easily relate to what you’re talking about. For me, I’m a better kayaker than a mountain biker so I’ve kayaked stuff that I’ve found scary and induced proper adrenaline in the process. Pushing way outside your boundaries on something that has a very real risk of serious injury does this.

But my biking skills are not as good, I’m more a wheels-on-the-ground rider too. Maybe because I’m older now, but I don’t push outside of my current comfort zone as much as I did in my youth and when I do its only by a little bit – maybe rolling into a steeper than normal descent where a mistake would mean bruises but no broken bones or worse. If I was to push way outside of my comfort zone and line up a big jump, then I’m sure the adrenaline would kick in! (and I’d almost certainly get injured).

Windows Live Photo Gallery. Its free and has a direct link to upload to Flickr. Also has amazing photo-stitch abilities for your panoramic landscapes. I’ve got 120Gb of photos on my laptop, no problems.

http://download.live.com/photogallery

Mine is about 35lb as you see it above, which I personally would like to make a bit lighter for generally trail duties. That’s with a DHX5 coil, Pike 426 coil u-turn, WTB Dual-Duty FR rims and fairly robust finishing kit.

I’m also interested to know how it climbs with a 160mm fork, wondering if I need to bother with travel-adjust (U-Turn/TALAS) for those steep granny climbs?

Sorry, large frame with Pikes but heh, its a Heckler! Hoping to get a shorter stem and 160mm forks this season to make it even more fun.

FWIW, I’m a snowboarder and now wear a helmet all the time. Its warm, dry and means I’m not so worried about catching a heel edge on an icy day.

Graham S – this blog is worth reading, daily conditions at Whistler from a local (intead of the Intrawest marketing machine) http://whistlerblackcombsnowreport.com

Not a great season so far in my inexperienced opinion: unseasonally cold December, followed by too much snow over Xmas (avalanches galore), followed by a dry & hot January. Forecast looks a bit better from now on, so fingers crossed for some steady snow.

Got mine for Xmas (first games console) and still only have COD5, but Rock Band 2 is on order for the Mrs. Just re-started COD5 on Veteran level, I think it could take some time to complete!

Any suggestions for another good shoot-em-up?

I found this in the laundry room last week, and am thoroughly enjoying it so far. Very well written, lots of interesting detail:
http://www.amazon.com/Gathering-Saints-Christopher-Hyde/dp/0671875809

Also living in Vancouver now, moved here last Easter with the Mrs. All good so far, don’t think we’ll be rushing back to the UK anytime soon.

Deadly – feel free to ping any of your questions my way if you want.