Pro tip: No need for all that condom swallowing malarkey, a stuffed donkey 😉

The Swindon trail sabotage was a STW inside job and first strike against the scourge of rad and gnar blighting the tranquil Great British countryside.

A socialist paradise.

After the purge the emerging STW benevolent dictatorship.

I long for the days of being patted on the head by the grand high wizard Bazza (arms length manager, possibly living in Spain, the people are so nice there) as I agree with and echo everything he says. After all we are the most tolerant, live and let live people in the world, aren’t we. The papers say so and I’ve got a black gender fluid best friend (sock puppet) as proof.

He will allow me to rent one of his wonderful terrace houses in Moston (no children or dogs) and I will be eternally grateful and work, for the people, for free. Either that or join the peoples army (allowed to drive base model VW’s as a perk), compulsory palace and public space gardeners, house servants to the great and the good (a pooled tandem as a perk), pot hole menders and litter picking teams.

Videoed self flagellation is the minimum standard accepted by the STW select committee. It marks the beginning of a lifelong learning exercise.

Possibly the best end credit sequence ever!

I think the main thing wrong with WC DH is there isn’t enough races in the series.

Looking forward to Snowshoe. It’s a bike park but it’s got classic written all over it. Nothing wrong with bike parks when they’re like Schladming, Windrock, Blue Derby, Snowshoe and the like, just wish they were closer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rkPlij59CY

Holywell Bay

There’s a nice little kids fun fair close by. It’s quite low key rather than trashy, lovely little place. Kids can try and catch tiddlers in the river next to the beach!

Never had a problem with walkers out on the hills. Add a dog to the equation and the owners develop the same pack territorial instincts.

There’s a park I regularly ride through, where more times than not, someone out taking their pet for shit has got something to say. Like I’m a mobile complaints department and all public space is now their pet’s toilet and playground. I don’t live in the genteel home counties where it’s all jolly hockey sticks though.

Why would you even bother reading Daily Mail comments? You’d get better-reasoned conversation by going into a Yates’s Wine Lodge at closing time, kicking a bloke in the nuts and then asking him what he thinks about Proust.

Yup the mistake is thinking you are dealing with rational and reasonable people.

All this just fuels the gammon hate machine, provides jorno’s with fodder, and encourages more braindeads to get involved.

Full sus defo and a good climber, you will be doing lots of it. It’s a bit of a Lake District lite but still has plenty of big hills to get up. You can of course ride everything in the peaks on a hardtail, but the rockiest trails will be very tiring and difficult to ride the most direct lines flat out!

Get as much travel as you can for a reasonable weight, that will most probably be up to 160mm. You won’t always need it, but if there’s little to no weight penalty and the pedalling platform is good then why not!

Yeah but there’s a plentiful supply.

Yeah that’s the one.

Some life that trying get everything you don’t like banned!

I propose the heat should be harnessed as a green energy source. Maybe get them in rooms clockwork orange style, 24 hr coverage of benefit cheats, immigrants, boy racers, pot holes, MX bikes tearing the countryside up, new build housing estates being built, parking disputes, speeding, the sound of big bore exhausts and Happy Hardcore blaring constantly.

You mean made by a man in a shed with a selection of hammers, a tenuous engineering connection, dressed in Victorian cloths, wearing a leather apron, costing twelvety thousand pounds.

“take meh money”

ROFL did anyone see the BBC 4 thing where gammon’s were trying to get green laning banned across the peak district. Typical gammon mob tactics, bullying, lying, exaggerating, baiting and escalating, harassing public officials and tears thrown in for good measure.

The same tactics are rolled out across this country year on year. Must be tiresome for the public officials and bodies, they try it on with, time and time again.

Hmmmmm funny isn’t it, how we end up with journalism, management and politicians who pull the same stunts!

Thumbs dowan, not good enough to ride on top of an Audi/Merc, T5 bumper adornment or STW kitchen ornament.

FFS do they even do road or gravel bikes 😉

I vote Cube as next worse/worserer!

Citizen Smith – 30/40 years on whatever……

Cast – Binners taking the lead role
Binners Wife – AKA the straight talking boss
Malvern Rider – Binners flamboyant city living best friend
Dez B – Creme Brulee style lead singer with a penchant for satin effect bodysuits

Act 1 Scene 1:

Set in the village of Bottomswood voted most up and coming in 2006 by Country Magazine. Binners lives in a 1930’s semi with shared driveway, Mr Greenwood/arsehole nextdoor.

Binners moving boxes of shit from his garage (his missus has been ragging him to shift for the last ten years) into the boot of his pristine, low mileage, white, remapped, 330D estate. He always wanted the M Coupe version but arrrrr well, it’s fast for a diesel, fastest production diesel engine for it’s capacity, shows them boy racer neon lit Corsa’s up at the lights!

The bottom of one of the boxes drops out onto the shared driveway, a hardback copy of Das Kapital and a moth eaten anarchist emblazoned bandana.

The visceral rush of nostalgia almost overcoming Binners, with flashbacks of thick acrid smoke, raining petrol bombs, running, baton charges, interrupted by the dulcet tones of the wife emanating from the bathroom window.

Wife: oiiii the toilets blocked again. When you’ve finished getting rid of that old shit, you better get this sorted before Boon Nam and Arabella come round. The borders need weeding as well, have you been sat on your arse all week watching Sky Sports again?

Binners: (mumbles under his breath) for **** sake those two pretentious wannabes, well Boon Nam is pretty tidy like……. Yes love I’ll get a few bottles of that flavoured gin and hickory chips for the BBQ.

Scene 2: The Tip

TBC……..

@ russyh – No they’re not the same and believe me the Force tyres are an evolutionary dead end. All the central tread blocks have narrow chamfered and tapered leading edges, which means braking in a straight line, in any kind of wet/loose conditions will see the tyre glide straight on!

You wanted a less draggy rear than the rear specific Enduro. The Performance Wild AM (with it’s scaled down tread and lighter carcass) is that tyre in the current Michelin range! It has more broader square leading edges in it’s central tread, which means better straight line braking grip than a Force tyre can ever offer, an important trait of a rear tyre!

The Wild AM (the AM part is just stupid) should be offered in what Michelin now call Enduro, christ on a bike they’ve painted themselves into bit of a mess corner! Almost as bad as Maxxis not initially offering the DHR 2 in dual compound DD (the ideal rear combo for a rear specific tyre arrrrgg FFS) or the Assagai in DD, Exo and the new Exo+, what were they thinking…..

Edit: Hahaha “bit of a mess” that’s not how I worded it. Acronym CF!

Currently running Mattoc Pro’s with the IRT and they’re pretty damn good, especially for the cash.

Agreed. The damper is nice, you can really lean on it. Adjustments are more fine than RS and Fox, you can’t do silly things with it! The air chamber is small by default, so little psi changes make a big difference. On the downside the non boost ones are too flexy!

The new Mezzer is shaping up to be the best fork Manitou have made thus far.

Nope there are Performance and Competition versions of the Wild AM, Force AM and XC if thats what you mean.

Don’t shoot the messenger! The nomenclature is Michelins own little stroke of marketing genius, that TBF isn’t much worse than all the other bullshit flannel merchants in the industry.

so im looking for a complementary Michelin rear for summer riding,

the tread is shallower than I would have liked

Performance Wild AM. It’s a better tread than the Force!

Sounds like the sort of unhinged “chum” who would have no problem tampering with vehicles brakes or stringing razor wire between houses gate posts. We live in a country crammed full of angry, bright red gammon loon balls!

Get your body positioning for all trail occurrences dialed, pick riding locations that will force you to concentrate on particular aspects, rinse and repeat! Surprising how many people, myself included (I have to keep reminding myself), who have been riding for years but get the basics wrong or are not consistent.

Then all the obvious skills pumping, bunny hops, wheelies, manuals, drops, boosting jumps etc…..

Nice additional butty the kick backs for indemnity policies!

Legal and finance have an uncanny knack of helping each other cream money off.

Houses with bodged electrics are extremely common in the UK and have been bought and sold many times since electricity was first introduced. Rarely do you find a house that hasn’t been messed with at some point by a DIY numpty. Surprisingly rare (given the frequency) for it to result in fire or electrocution. I’ve never come across it, even though I have seen some terrifying stuff that had potential! For example the old favourite and common bodge of using bell wire in circuits, with the insulation reduced to dust (disappears with the flick of a finger) because of the heat, leaving bare conductors exposed!

+1 Flite Seat

Smoke and Dart

You know you can buy these things (including rechargeable) direct from china for peanuts.

Look on Banggood or Gearbest.

Jezuz my secret cheap tyre (like a better SE4) and yes they come up a bit small, which is unusual for Michelin’s! Surprisingly robust for a lightish tyre, don’t get me wrong these are not a DH casing by any means.

Once STW rinse them out the jobs **** and the price will double!

Impacts have brutally stiff and thick soles, not to mention their weight! Which are great for damping down vibration and impacts, but not so good for arch support and comfort.

Freerider Elements (I have both) are better comfort wise (no numbness), an all-rounder, but not as good at shielding your feet from hard landings. Obviously they aren’t as robust, or as robust as they look and are discontinued anyway!

To be fair that Brodie would eat up most FC trail centre black trails no bother, not so much the fire road climbs.

These old DH bikes are like grasshoppers compared to todays praying mantis.

Not what it was.

It’s become a generic gentrified cheese fest. It’s too cheap, they should double ticket prices each year, just because they can!

You could just put all your bits on a 650b frame. If you pick one with a highish BB you might improve it, dropping it on 26 inch.

Veltins is a nice delicate little number, always best as a first pint you can’t taste it after that!

Moorish:

Hailstone in June is a first for me and not in the highlands or up a mountain either, outrageous!

Top boy him and the Trumper for dragging blond hair into disrepute.

Breakage

Levon Vincent

Levon has one called Rainstorm II as well.

Gone are the days when sexual preference was the moral yardstick by which suitability was judged!

Rory is an Aardman Animations creation and very entertaining when tripping his tits off.

Esther McVey without doubt a straight head and complete buzz kill.

Going out in persistent rain is a good way to avoid dickheads! Often even the busiest trails are empty IME.

Is there really a big contingent of all weather riders in the UK. I’ve only ever seen it at uplift venues, races and pre-arranged group rides, where you can’t preempt the weather, even then there’s always more no shows and mystery illness!

Some of the best rides I’ve been on, have been when it’s been shit out, there’s been a few horrors as well though!

Some frames have interchangeable dropouts where you can swap the dropout for a direct mount hanger off a later/different model and remove the piece of shit tin plate from the puzzle.

All my mechs look like they have been through an industrial shredder!