Enjoyed that. I was living in Phoenix in the nineties and remember how surprised the local bikers were at how dominant the Europeans were at the olympics in 96, never realised that there was a drug issue in MTBs. Ned comes across as a very down to earth champion, hopefully we’ll all still be pushing hard in our later years …

I tried them about 2 years ago. On the front I got over 4000 miles and performance was good, on the back I got about three rides on two different tyres, they both got 5/6mm punctures which I couldn’t seal with anchovies. I bought them from sigma sports and they gave me a healthy discount on continental 5000s which have been better in every way – the Hutchinsons do seem to get very mixed reviews

Cycling tips said the following in their review

Such flex between these two ends of the front triangle can go a long way to creating a bike that offers a nice ride quality, but it does detract from how the bike feels in an urgent surge of power. More importantly, both Andy and I each experienced a one-off bout of speed wobble in gusty conditions at over 75 km/h that we then couldn’t replicate (and I haven’t been able to get back to the same seated coasting speeds around my local roads in Sydney). James Huang experienced a similar thing on his stiffer TCR Advanced SL test sample and claims to have solved the issue by balancing the wheel.

I took a gap year when I was 52, handed in my notice after 9 months and retired on my 53 birthday, it was a real wake up call for me that there is far more to life than work. But I’d been a bit of a workaholic throughout my career and definitely didn’t have a good work life balance

Had the Oxford jab on Friday. Both of my legs were really aching throughout the night – enough to wake me up and keep me awake from 1 – 4am. Felt mildly achy all over for the rest of the weekend but all good now.

20 years ago I was riding a ventana habernero ( a very hot chilli ) that I bought whilst living in Phoenix for 5 years. Now have a 29 anthem and a tarmac disc, road biking has slowly overtaken mtb’s but now that the kids are older I’m hoping that it might start to swing back the other way

I have the same bike in 17.5, and agree with lots of the above advice. It is a xc bike with a specifically designed short fork so suspension forks don’t really work. If you want to keep it, going tubeless and dropping pressures will help and a few people on here speak highly of the redshift flex stem which gives 20 mm of travel. The other issue you have is getting the bike you want as stock is very limited for the foreseeable future. But they do seem to be very desirable and hold their value well, you should get £5/600 for it ( I’ve been asked a few times if mine is for sale )

I have roval slx24 which have DT internals and I run them tubeless. Been perfect for over 10K miles

I have an old one that has been sitting in a draw for 4 years, you’re welcome to it for free if you don’t want an excuse to upgrade!

You two have just made my wife’s day!

My wife has just given me Bob’s Stetson Pork Pie hat for valentines. Very happy but, not being a hat wearer, I’m going to have to build up my confidence before wearing it outside!

I tend to eat Söreen bars and cliff shots, I cut the tops off the wrappers before I leave so I can use one hand and my teeth to get the ‘food’ out. I’m a big fan of Huel so I might try that suggestion myself

Big fan too although I’ve never used a smart trainer. They have really changed the way I ride. I’ve have now got a higher cadence, I understand how long i can hold a given power for so I can really push hard on hills and intervals have really improved my recovery rates. As others have said, you can get the resistance just by dropping the air pressure by 10psi and they are easy to store and set up

A and B for me. 100% A when it’s a mud fest then about 70:30

I’ve done about 12k miles now and tried 4 different brands. I’ve settled on conti 5000 25mm and I’m running them 72/78 psi front/rear. Used anchovies a few times with no problems and have just left them in with no other repairs, putting an achovy in so quick, don’t even need to take the wheel off. Fast, comfortable and good puncture resistance. The only thing I would check is that your rims are truely tubeless in that the bead locks into the rim and stays there with zero pressure. My rovals say they are tubeless compatible but the beads drop off with no pressure. My wife’s JRA wheels don’t do this.

No, I bought the lark lights for her as she is on rim brakes. But when my roval slx24s die I will get the MAPs as I’m very impressed with the build quality and bearings. The other big thing for me is that for tubeless, the bead properly locks into the rim on her wheels so, with no pressure, the tyre doesn’t fall off the rim. On the rovals, although they are tubeless, the bead does come off the rim with no pressure

Bought just riding along wheels for my wife’s bike and really impressed with the service and quality. £390, light and still perfectly true

I live in mine too, and like you I snapped an arm during a hike in the pouring rain in the Peak District. Mine were about the same age and Anne came to my rescue too!

Injured again. I’ve completed ct5k three times in the last 12 months only to get injured just as I complete it each time. This final time I kept my runs to only two per week, I religiously walked for 5 mins before and after for a warm up and cool down, kept the pace even and avoided sharp hills. My calf went yesterday forcing me to stop almost immediately and limp home after only 6 mins of running. It seems to be fine on the bike but walking is painful – any ideas on what I’ve done and what I’m doing wrong. Determined to be a runner but not being very successful

This is pc part picker’s budget AMD gaming build but the graphics card is upgraded and it includes the pic express wifi card

LG UltraGear 24GL600F 23.6 Inch (1920 x 1080) TN Display – 1ms 144 Hz Radeon Fsync HDMI DP

AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6 Core (Socket AM4) CPU

Gigabyte B450M H AMD Socket AM4 Motherboard ( without wifi !)

ASUS GeForce GTX 1660 Phoenix OC 6GB GDDR5 VR Ready Graphics Card

PNY XLR8 16GB (2x 8GB) 3200MHz DDR4 RAM

S12III 550 – Non-Modular PC Power Supply – 80 PLUS Bronze – 550 Watts

PNY CS900 480GB Internal SSD Series 2.5 SATA III, BLACK

Gigabyte GC-WB1733D-I ,1733Mbps AC Wireless PCIe Adapter + Bluetooth 5

Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L – mATX Mini Tower Case with Full Side Panel Display

We have finally finished our first pc build. Sourcing a new graphics card was hard work as demand is far in excess of available stock. Really enjoyed the whole process and learnt a lot. Biggest lesson was when using pc part picker for a gaming pc they assume you are going to use an Ethernet cable … My sons pc is a long way from the router so we have now learnt about pci express wifi cards! Anyway all up and running now. Thanks to all for advice plus singletrack as a whole for the various threads that gave us the confidence to attempt it!

Approximate dates

92 Specialized rockhopper
96 Marin pine mountain
98 Ventana el habenero
03 Specialized epic mk2
07 Santacruz superlight mk2
15 Whyte 905
16 Genesis Fortitude ( current )
19 Anthem ( currently )

Only bike I didn’t like was the Whyte, really like the Anthem

When children came along, I started road biking because I had less time, and started commuting

09 Orbea Aqua
11 Genesis Equilibrium
13 Specialized Roubaix
17 Specialized Tarmac SL5 Disc

Equilibrium was dull, Tarmac fantastic

‘92 for me on a purple fully rigid specialized rockhopper from M. Steels in Newcastle which I think has recently closed. Loved that bike and have always had a soft spot for specialized ever since …

Hello sidders34, thanks for the offer but we are going to hold out for the 1650 super cards to come back into stock

Just coming back to say thanks for all the advice. I didn’t say that the pc is fully built except for the graphics card with a Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 and 16G of RAM. Im quite surprised at my son’s patience but based on the above, he is going to wait for the 1650 super cards to come back into stock which, hopefully, will be about 2 weeks – I wish I had that patience when I really wanted something

Thanks all, lots to investigate – it makes choosing headsets look easy!

Is it the card that controls FPS, what is the minimum recommended for gaming GPUs – my son is very focused on this number!

Cougar, those were the numbers of the GPU that pc part picker was recommending when the GPUs were in stock at that price in early December.He wants to play war zone, Cold War, fort nite, rocket league but mainly multi player shooting games – his words, not mine!

thanks fossy, which one would you recommend – I have no idea and have been using pc part picker to make my decisions …

Actually, only the first one is in stock that makes the decision easier!

Thank you munrobiker, thoroughly enjoyed the challenge – no days missed. Last two days didn’t go quite to plan as I pulled my calf muscle running yesterday so replaced the planned bike ride this morning with a bracing 7m walk along the coast in the wind with my daughter to keep me company. Happy Christmas to you all and thanks for keeping me motivated with your stories and pictures

So what are everyone’s plans for the last day? I expect it will depend on the weather for me but options are sliding around in the mud on mtb, battling the wind on the road, long walk or chilled out yoga session. The road bike is edging it at the moment …

Are mountain equipment and montane british?

Riding with my wife this morning, got very wet and the next few days look equally damp – so no nice easy wind down, character building to the end!

4700 miles for me, bit disappointed but have been struggling with a glute / sciatica issue for the last 10 months which the Phsyio’s can’t seem to fix

We’re into the last 10 days, oh yeah! Keep going everyone – we’re close …

I’ve had roval slx24 for three years riding all seasons and doing about 4500 miles a year – super reliable, and they haven’t been touched. But, although I ride them tubeless, the bead doesn’t lock in very well ( this isn’t a problem with gp5000s as they go up so easily but IRC are impossible to inflate ). Also bought light larks from JRA recently for my wife and they are very impressive. They are not set up tubeless yet but there is a definite ridge on the rim so I think the bead will lock better than my rovals

This is all slightly over my head but I think I have the same problem. Do you just plug one of these tenda units into your router and then position the other two units on different floors and you magically have good WiFi throughout the house – sorry for the hijack but I have a household of unhappy people! Do I need to configure anything and have a degree of competence in networking…

Had mixed results with Hutchinson fusion performance, front lasted over 4000 miles but went through two in very quick succession on the rear and both got 5mm cuts that wouldn’t seal. 5000’s are my favourite, front has done 4000 miles and two rears have been replaced after 3000 miles. I run them all year round, front at 72 and rear at 78psi.

Must confess to starting to struggle, left hamstring and right knee both want some time off! But we’re in the final straight so gotta keep going …

How about rollers, much cheaper ( some currently in classifieds ), easy to store and the time flies because you have to stay focused or you fall off!

And British cycling have loads of training plans