Because of limitations with when are where i can get to etc my riding consists of 5miles each way commute into manchester (no hills) plus bmx tracks at weekends for fun.I only manage to get out on a decent xc ride about once every 6 months. I’ve never done any long distance training just intervals while commuting and riding the bmx track becomes an interval session without trying.

Recently I did the climachx trail and we did 2 laps with few stops and I certainly didnt feel lacking. For what I do, I’m not sure what the extra hours of long distance riding would give me, it doesnt seem efficient to me.

Some odd old women feeds pigeons in my street and they like to wait to take off until I just get to them, managed to bounce a few off my head. I wouldn’t recommend it

This.
I was stopped at a set of red lights, sat in my advanced stop box thing, just holding onto the railings on the left. The car behind me stopped at his line then, while the lights were red, crawled slowly forward, through the advanced stop box and about 5ft out the other side of it!

Haaa I see this everday! But for some reason the ones that do this then take 2 seconds to set off once the light turns green! If i was a passenger I’d be asking what they thought they were doing. It’s bizarre

Definitely rate them. We went searching all over last year for a first time buyer mortgage and then was eventually told to give them a call. They managed to find us a deal 0.75% cheaper than we could find anywhere else and it was all free. give em pop

Here’s a couple from the little bmx play track near wilmslow yesterday

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Rich at Wilmslow Play Track[/url] by 2manymikes[/url], on Flickr

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Wilmslow Play Track[/url] by 2manymikes[/url], on Flickr

Yeah I went in 2007, what an incredible festival! All the annoying bits from british festivals seemed non existant – foul toilets? nope. Expensive beer? nope. terrible food choice? nope. rain? er what’s that?!

We did the full week of camping and we all started to lose the plot with the heat by the end!! What helped was that we brought a big thick tarpaulin and tied it up over our tents, it kept the sun off for a bit longer and gaves us a few more hours sleep.

I used to work in a Threshers with a lottery machine. Everytime it was a big euro rollover week the number buying tickets would treble and they’d all say something like “when it’s that much money, you have to buy a ticket!”. Really?! Because the usual £10m wouldn’t change your life??!!

As above though, buy all the loved ones a house etc, spread it around a bit and then spend the rest of my days doing what i enjoy!

I have the basics which are… basic and they’ve lasted 18months of wet manchester commuting plus all the other riding around that and they’re still going strong. Sole has obviously been used but loads of life left in it. Pretty annoying actually as I fancy some of the better looking freeriders but have no justification!

Christopher Walken!?
Clint?!
Come on!!!!

Have you tried just not changing out of your middle ring for a few rides and see how you get on?

I run a single ring with just a DMR chainguide and it never falls off. I’ve never had a bash guard, I don’t think they’re necessary. You’ll have more ground clearance anyway without the big ring

Nash’s! brilliant chip shop. My first job was as the greasy chip boy at Bryan’s but we still got our fish and chips from Nash’s!

And i can confirm I had to let people put their own salt and vinegar on. I could never put enough on for some people, it would have been easier to fry everything in vinegar the amount some people wanted…

Check outBikejames.com

He trains the Yeti team, so multiple world champions etc, the guy gets results! He has a number of workouts on his website, one of them is a purely no gym dumbbell routine which sounds perfect for you.

Check out his blog too, those tonnes of free information there that gives you a head start to essential exercises if you havent got much time or cant get to a gym. I’ve got myslef a bar bell, some dumbbells and a chin up bar and i’m really starting to get results, more power, endurance etc

1st mx is pretty good for fox gear, they seem to have a big range

How hard do you lot with 4+ bikes find switching between them all?

I have one bike that I’m completely used to, when i get on someone else’s bike, everything feels wrong! Do you have to spend a while on each ride getting used to the bike? Or does it come back straight away?

Absolutely

I have one bike, a little Giant STP hardtail. I have a stupid long seatpost for when I’m XCing, drop the saddle for bmx tracks dirt jumps etc and spare wheels with road tyres on for riding to work.

Never been able to justify another bike as it does everything i need and is good at it, never feel compromised.

When I’m drifting off I often have falling dreams which end with me waking and throwing my arms out. I’ve ended up hitting my better half a couple of times and she now sleeps with her arm in front of her face! :?

I’d check your pulse now, you may already be dead..

I use the cat test, if the cat will eat it, it’s probably fine (and she’s a picky bugger!)

Just got back from spending an evening at my mates playing with his, i think it’s great! Everyone was getting involved, it was great for mucking about with a group of friends. Probably pretty pointless on your own though. Worked really well, didn’t seem to be affected by people moving around in the background. Two thumbs up from me!

My Nan decided to get a dvd player, plugged in the SCART, plugged in the power, all going well. Then my mum got a call because it turned out it didn’t actually work, could she come round and fix it?

My nan says she has put a dvd in, nothing happened so put another in, nothing happened again. So my mum opens the tray and it’s empty “oooh what did you do there? how did that happen?”
Mum – “what do you mean, that’s where the DVDs go what did you do?”

Turns out she’d rammed the dvds through a gap in casing like it was a car cd player (she doesn’t have one of those though..)

end of story

I have to keep going back to look at this, it’s baffling me. What gwan?

Haha I wouldn’t rely on city roads being gritted, riding in Manchester was hilarious last year! I gave up when I started braking for red lights and ended up sliding straight through with one foot on the floor to stop me stacking it. Suddenly became unenjoyable, especially when the buses decided to follow 6ft behind.

My advice is if you worry about it, you crash, if you don’t and stay loose you’ll probably be ok. you get numb bits but its not bad once oyu get going. One day it was -16! that was cold..

Thats weird, I’ve just had the exact opposite experience! I usually use shell as there’s one just round the corner from me but I got taken in by Sainsburys cheap prices the other week. The smoke was amazing! Zero power and rubbish mpg, you just had to look at the accelerator and the car behind vanished! I used that up and put in some v power and it’s running sweet now, hardly any smoke.

I did a week in Morzine and Les Gets on a hardtail and it was fine. You can only go as fast as your skills let you so it’s fairly self regulating! You’ll quickly learn to pick smooth lines so your bike probably won’t get too hammered, probably less so than a full suss cos you can’t plough through everything.As long as you’ve got fairly decent wheels you’ll be fine.
But the above advice is spot on, put some massive tyres on with low pressures and it’ll be sweet.

I agree that the fees going up almost 3 times is terrible, I would have been gutted if that had happened when I went to university but what I’m struggling to see is how its harder for the parents to send their kids?

My parents had to save up the fees for both myself and my twin brother before we went and then pay them up front each term. Now the kids pay after, so less to save right?

It’s a tax on gruaduates, it’s pretty obvious. But i think if you treat it that way instead of a massive debt that you’ll never clear it’s a bit easier to deal with. It doesn’t affect your credit rating etc

I’m onto my second pair after the first died after about 6 years of abuse (no maintenance), i love them! As above, put the bigger supplied pins in, they even put in a little allen key for you.

I guess if you’re doing a lot of downhill they’re probably not ideal, if you smash them off rock, what’s left of the pins won’t come out. I use them for the bmx track and XC and can’t fault them for that.

I have to drive up and down the M6 everyday and there seems to be some sort of accident every other day. If people can’t work out what a safe breaking distance is at 70 I really can’t seem them getting 90 right!

Haha that theory is balls! Chris Kovarik, Fort William 2002, won by 14 seconds in the wet on, wait for it….. flats!

One’s all you need! I’ve got a Giant STP with some 100mm fox forks.

I use a silly long seatpost for XC and commuting to work, which it’s probably not designed for but it works but it’s also mint at the BMX track and at 4X races. I love it! I couldn’t imagine swapping between bikes and having to get used to them again, this does it all.

Yeah TSG are very good, I've had one of those in the past. Only replaced it cos it was very manky after about 8 years use! I'm now using a protec which I'd also rate

Ditto with the basics. Got a pair in January and they pinched on one foot for a couple of weeks but fine since then.

Been using them for commuting everyday, bmx track once a week plus the odd bit of xc every so often and they're still in one piece, no rotting or falling apart.

I didn't like the grip at first but you work how to adjust your feet quickly. I wouldn't have anything else now, plus the new version look great