Lee – interested, been on your website but can’t see any examples – do you have some you can email over?

Martinxyz – I’d say it is a problem if you can’t take action to resolve it – if you can’t resolve it then let it flow on by like water off a ducks back.

I like to think that in life there are only good experiences and learning experiences (bad experiences are only bad if you let them be). No point getting anxious as it doesn’t help with those problems you can’t take action on and if you can take action then deciding on the type of action shouldn’t involve anxiety anyway.

I have to say I used to be really anxious about similar things but now I’m less anxious from taking this approach – I do find I occasionally get anxious (like last night before coming back to work) but I stop myself and move on to thinking about something more positive – it has taken a long time to change but the change is massive to my whole approach on life.

I used to have 100mph head – managed to get control over the speed it runs at so I can slow it down considerably when I need to. Amazing the difference it makes especially to sleeping – I used to be jealous of my kids sleeping like babies but now I sleep better than they do.

On the subject of feeling you aren’t training hard enough – you may need to step away (as hard as it seems) until you calm your system down otherwise it won’t get better soon. Pushing yourself too hard will only result in something giving – my experience was like a fuse blowing suddenly one day after about 12 months of things gradually get worse but me not wanting to accept I couldn’t do it all. I used to have the belief that at 38 I should have been able to push myself harder than I was (2 kids, a tough job, busy social life and trying to ride 6-7 days a week along with 1-2 trail building sessions a week) and if I didn’t do it all I felt guilty and would worry something was wrong – it was, I was just ignoring the warning signs. My body just said “stop” and it did.

I’m now content just getting out on the bike for 30mins, but if I get more I enjoy it too – 5 hours at Bikeparkwales 2 days ago was awesome. I no longer have to ruin myself after every ride which I felt driven to achieve so I could say I’d pushed myself that little extra.

The good news is you can change and improve – A mate of mine had CFS for about 4 years and is now doing Ironman Tri’s and is super fit but he has rebuilt his foundation and is stronger from it.

Mine developed into Cfs, lost 2-3yrs of my life and wish I’d done more earlier and seen the warning signs. The good thing here is you are getting some help/advice (although I’d steer clear of weed, tried it and made me worse)

I should add that while Cfs was one of the worst periods of my life, the recovery has been amazing and one of the best experiences ever

I read a book and it had a profound impact, “the power of now”, I didn’t read it all but the concept changed my view on what I should be thinking about.

Also remember that the brain is a muscle and if you trained it to have control over your thoughts as much as you train your muscles for sport you’d not have half the problems. My mind used to be as out of control as a feral child.

Sack the ride off and gets leathered, you’ll be able to ride again.

Been through the same and came out the other side after massive meltdown and am now a changed, more positive and less stressed person, it is possible to change.

What were you using before?

I like Curtis as a brand and the bikes it produces, but for me those forks and Bar ends are plain wrong. Those forks look like they should be on a road bike and bar ends look like they belong in last century. Those tyres make it look used and old.

In terms of pricing – I’d look around and see what the cheapest I could get the parts for currently and base it on about 60-75% of that.

Good luck selling it. Personally I’d keep the bike and sell something else – perhaps you kids or car – if you need to raise some capital. The market dictates the price not the seller.

B

For me probably the best was Gawton’s ProperJob and SuperTavy. Loved both and well worth the drive. Other than that any ride with mates and giggles.

BikeparkWales, CwmCarn, Afan, Wyre Forest, Malvern, Cotswolds, Quantocks (in no particular order)

The HMRC aspect might be unconnected, but the sim cards sound more of a concern – are they prepay or pay monthly?

Either way if you want to stop anything further happening the best thing to do is register with CIFAS and they will put a flag on which will be seen by more lenders when they pull data from the CRAs when processing applications – making them manually review the application and ask for further confirmations. Alternatively you can go to each CRA – Experian is the best – and register but this may not stop it as effectively.

http://www.cifas.org.uk/identity_fraud

I might give that a go, she’s got a slight independent streak in her so will see how I get on.

So far I’ve trained her to run as fast as she can when I say “Go, go go!”

It seems to work but I’d like to be able to have her drop back so will be working on that.

If it was a perfectly good floor I wouldn’t consider ripping it out – we have a few issues… ;)

I’m assuming the flooring connects to the boiler separately to the CH, is this correct?

Thanks for your input, much appreciated.

The spec on the canyon spectral looks great too although I’m waiting to read some reviews!

I’m swapping my Soul (and Scott Voltage) for a Spectral. I’ve just read a review in MBR (while in Sainsburys) on the Spectral and it was very complimentary

Ended up going with a Synology DS112 with 2TB disk. Just over £200 and so far I’m impressed.

Thanks for all the advice

I think the comment about the interface is a valid one – hadn;t really considered that – I want something which will work well rather than just store my info.

So, any views on best interface for Smartphone / tablet interaction?

Cool, so thinking synology ds114 with a 2tb red hdd now

This makes it a bit clearer.

In terms of devices, it will include dlna audio system, dlna TV and maybe a sonos system

DNLA drive – which one are you using and does it just sit under a desk running without needing a PC on?

I’ve got a DNLA TV, AMP, Phone and tablet – could be how I enter the 21st century!

How big is a typical DVD once converted? Not sure whether to get a 32 or 64gb SD card

Beer does spring to mind…

sqn23 – I agree on the difference not being worth £600… That 1×11 cassette is around £400 each so if I keep the bike for 3 years I’ll probably get through 2 cassettes which adds £800 to the bike!! At that cost I’d probably only ride it on the road.

Totally agree – already looking at swapping the Avid brakes to Shimano XTs or similar and getting some tyres…

Plus I’m thinking of swapping the forks anyway for Pikes eventually…

I think I’ve made my mind up… Cheapers over Blinger.

I’m not convinced about Kashima from what I’ve heard as no one has said – yeah its worth it. It’s not like a dropper post in terms of impact it will have on riding.

There are other differences such as Sram X0 drivetrain versus XT (I prefer XT which is on the cheaper bike) and a difference in wheels. But I’m not sure there is £600 of difference.

It’s the Canyon Spectral I’m looking at between these two models:

Spectral AL 9.0 SL

Spectral AL 8.0

I don’t think I am a good enough rider to need the difference or notice it.

Cheers all, will check the map and see where to pop into.

I can almost see a spartacus moment in crosstrax, with people saying “I’m Crag” just to get tea and biscuits foc

Woah! 6 months! As long at the A4 then…

Thanks for the input. Been looking at a number of cars inc BMW, Audi and Mercs. I recently test drove an A4 Avant but the ride was seriously hard on that and the steering was seriously light.

A VRS even with loads of options would save me over £100 on a base A4 so seems silly not to have a look and consider them.

Arranging a test drive in the next few days.

Local dealer hasn’t got the VRS but has a lower spec model. Been open with them but haven’t got round to popping down as its not quite on the doorstep

Meditate, used to suffer really badly from insomnia which lead to long term illness, meditation has changed it all and I now sleep like a baby. Only get insomnia now when I’ve had a skinful.

All to do with mental processes kicking in and not enabling you to sleep and meditation calming and teaching you to control the speed of your thoughts

The vid does flatten it out.

The Black option “Half cut” is a nuts little add on

Not sure at the moment on which to use but always been a fan of Polar but not sure if there are others out there which work better.

Yeah,that red on the far left (wibblywobbly) was awesome, including Rim Dinger which really is a rim dinger. Funniest moment was chatting to Anna after she had to deal with someone moaning he’d punctured on Rim Dinger – there was a certain irony to his complaint.

Apparently the ride to the top is OK, but loads of people were taking the road. My mate rode up and managed to do 2 runs in the same time we did 2 runs on the uplift. He said the road took 30mins but the climb took 40mins but was tougher.

Just got back and buzzing but also very knackered. Really good day out with some mates on bikes.

The good points:

Loads of trails of varying ability and style – some tight singletrack which feels quite natural to some bermy swoopy stuff – something for everything. The trails are definitely harder than your average graded trails – except the blacks which I expected a bit more from – except for Half cut which had us all on our arses!

Loads of people there but didn’t feel like I saw anyone when out on the trails.

There were some real challenges on the trails which I look forward to spending time on in the future.

Enough for a days riding – the variety of trails made it great to mix it up – with us splitting up so some could ride blacks while others rode blues or reds and still meeting back down the bottom at a similar time.

The bad points / points for improvement

The slow uplift turnaround killed the vibe for me – spent far too long waiting for the uplift or waiting for the uplift to set off – we managed 7 uplifts today (we missed one). At one point it was 3 runs in 2 hours. We worked out that if we had paid per run it would have cost us £33 versus £30 upfront (including £5 entry). Mainly down to the drivers checkign everything too much and I’m sure they’ll get this sorted in time.

They could do with another climb on the north side (right hand side/otherside to the other climb) of the site as if I went back I’d either want to session the blacks or ride it like a trail centre but having one climb puts me off as I’m not sure I could keep doing it again and again. Another climb to mix it up would be nice to see and then I’d probably XC it. At the moment the slow uplift means I’d either ride to the top and back down a couple of times and then maybe an uplift or two or I’d take the uplift – pay for a trip to the top then session different sections on the way down to make the most of the one uplift.

Some signs next to the big features would be nice to warn first timers as I saw a few people (inc me and my mates) hit some stuff which wasn’t how we expected – namely the gap jump on Enter the dragon which looked like a table but wasn’t. I’d normally take it easy but with the slow uplift it made us want to hoon it down to see if we could get the bus as quick as possible.

On the whole it’s got some great trails, a load of potential for the future and I can’t wait to get back to ride it again. Big respect to the team up there as I can see this being a major destination for the future. Will be interesting to ride in the wet.

Oh, and another thing – they ran out of ketchup!!! ;)

Yeah – I was riding a 160/150mm Scott Voltage and it was fine. Not sure I’d need much more unless I wanted to make it easier. ;)

Heard they are looking at putting some singletrack in when they get the manpower

Yeah – that Lufthansa was 83 – seems like yesterday.