gibby – Looked in all the obvious places but no luck.

🙄 – The Bike Chain would have been the first place to look online!

onceinalifetime – CALLING STW TO CHILLAX.

That’s rich coming from you!

Just Riding Along have more 650b stuff than anyone else in the UK.

edit: just seen that it had already been mentioned.

I’m not very clued up on those areas, so forgive me if the following link is way off the mark. Even if it’s no good, there’s still some useful info on there and stuff that’s well worth looking at.
gletschersau.de.

You’ve tried everywhere that is listed as an Ibis dealer?

Boil some?

Windstopper is shower-resistant. It won’t keep you dry when it’s pouring down. I find anything waterproof is too warm for summer use, even though I’ve got Goretex Active Shell and eVent jackets! I’ve started riding with just normal kit and put a warm layer on when stopping…alright when pushing on but not on big group rides.

If you’ve been looking at the jackets, the one that turns into a gilet is excellent.

If had had to have one, it would be on the helmet…the light is always where you’re looking then and having it high up makes the shadows shorter too.

Get out in it! Most of the trails here are weather resistant…whereabouts are you staying? Hodge Close, Iron Keld and Loughrigg Terrace (Ambleside area) and The Borrowdale Bash (Keswick) are good all-weather rides.

There’s nothing stopping you from setting up a Howdens account yourself, it doesn’t matter if you’re in the trade or not. Just say you’re doing a few properties up if they ask.

If you’re buying new, is it worth buying from the US to end up with no warranty? Especially for what you can buy Rockshox for from the likes of Merlin.

Depends what kind of thing you’re after. Breaking Bad is easy to watch. A mate has lent me the whole series of The Wire but I haven’t got past the first series…It seems dated to me.
Movie2k has got just about any series you could want.

Which country are you off too? I hired a Fiat Doblo when I was in Spain…it was great for getting bikes in.
The company I hired it from had Citroen Berlingo’s and the Peugeot equivalent too.
I had to hire one of those to make sure my bike bag would fit, rather than just the bike itself.

I think I had a Coyote, not sure on the model. It was black with pink writing and had Scott brakes. I’d replaced every alloy part on it for something purple too!

There was nowhere to get alcohol in the mountains, you can buy it in certain supermarkets and hotels though. The best bet would be to take it with you. Maybe buying it in the UK duty free?

crashtestmonkey – Was it a requirement to wear those pads? Soft-shelled knee pads maybe, but full on, hard-shell DH pads?!?

matthewlhome – Member
Bung mine in the freezer after my ride to kill the nastys

I am intrigued by this. I wash mine out with a bit of fairy after use and then rinse it through. I am curious as to what the benefit of keeping it in the freezer is?

You still rinse or clean it out. Keeping it in the freezer saves you from having to dry it out.

Which is the best bladder depends on the design of your pack too…Camelback and Osprey packs need the bladders with the screw on top. If your pack opens from the top though, the Source ones are spot on.

ODI Xtremes, I have them on/put them on any bike I ride. Don’t seem as hard as other ODI’s.
I’d like to try some Oury lock-ons too, don’t know if you can get them in the UK though?

You could do with aiming for around 300 calories an hour. A bit of protein helps when riding for more than a couple hours too.

Both sides or just one? If both, check your saddle isn’t too high.

Get it booked Jon!

agentdagnamit – The Atlas mountains in winter sound very interesting.

It depends on what you mean by ‘interesting’…on our first day, we ended up above the snow line and were lucky the snow wasn’t any deeper than what it was.
At night when staying high up, the temperatures were way below freezing. I think my sleeping bag’s comfort rating is -8degC and I still had to wear thermals!
We were also very lucky with the weather. The week before there had been blizzards and rain. We only got a bit of rain on one afternoon.

The trip I did looks/sounds very different to the Exodus one. There were plenty of singletrack descents, but I suppose that goes with crossing a mountain range. It involved us staying in gites in the villages along the way. There were no comfy hotels along the route! We only stayed in a hotel once we got to Marrakech.

Hi,
I haven’t been on the Exodus trip, I went to Morocco with Freeride Morocco, last January though.
To answer your questions:
I’d always take my own bike wherever I went in the world…more so in countries where you struggle to find decent bikes/bike shops. You need to take spares specific to your bike too, pads, mech hanger, maybe a tyre, etc.
A full-sus would be best and yes, the trails were similar to Southern Spain, more epic though.
The trip we did had to take in small roads and fire road because we were biking between our accommodation each day…we never used a vehicle for 5 days, although a van did take our gear between places and meet us to serve our lunch each day.
Having been biking in Spain a few times, Morocco was completely different. It was more like being on an adventure and seeing the different culture, scenery, etc was amazing.
With us travelling across the mountains, we were passing through very small villages, not towns. The sightseeing we were doing was the Atlas Mountains! We ended up in Marrakech at the end, I won’t be in a rush to go back there. A bit of a one trick pony for me and too much hustle and bustle.
If you’ve any questions, drop me an email if you like.

Have you got any bolts that will fit the holes? If so, you could still use cable ties…one under the head of each bolt, then fix others around the cables and attach to the ones under the bolt. You would leave the bolts loose and tighten down when everything’s in place.
Think of 3 links of chain to get a clearer picture of what it would look like. The middle link being the one bolted down. I’ve used a similar setup to hold cables beside the head tube before.

I tried to do a quick diagram in paint but it looked terrible!

Edz.

Same as a lot of Crank Bros. stuff…more design over function.

Second hand Chris King? 😀

Those rubber mallets you can get for a quid…a must for any toolkit!
Porridge oats…cheap as and the breakfast of champions!

Tiger – Is this you?

Northwind – Member
Lots of people overreact to steepness and sit right on the back tyre

+1, I don’t think folk realise that when they do this their arms are fully outstretched, making it impossible to steer!
If you imagine a vertical line going up from your BB, as long as you’re behind this and you keep your feet heavy…it’s quite hard to go over the bars.

glasgowdan – the last couple of posts have been on about altering the footpath/kerbs, not the actual driveway!

Dropping kerbs usually involves replacing 5-6 kerbs, digging the whole footpath down a foot deep, backfilling with type 1 sub-base and then 80-100mm of tarmac (60mm of base course and 20mm of wearing course). The concrete for the kerbs has to be quality assured and it has to be done by a Council approved contractor…it could cost nearer 2k to be honest (especially for the council to do it!).
You need a permit first, I think these aren’t far off £200 either.

The Tracer 2 and the Blur LTc are quite different bikes. You say the Nomad is too DH orientated, it has more in common with the Tracer 2 than the Blur.
I think the Tracer is too heavy to use in its lower travel setting too…what size forks are you planning on using? If 160mm, I can’t see why you wouldn’t choose a Nomad C over the Tracer? I’d only go for the Blur if I was going for a 150mm fork.

Decisions, decisions!

I’d get one like one of these:

You can pay £10-15 for something by Oakley or Dakine. Any high st. store should have the plain ones though for £3-4.

I’d spend the money on making it harder to get into the garage and fitting an alarm. As others have said, they will just cut through the frames or will just unbolt parts if they can’t cut through the lock.
It is just a shame there isn’t a legal way of wiring our bikes to the mains, so they would act like a giant fly zapper! 😈

It wouldn’t look so bad if the back wheels didn’t have those panels over them!

I took a group around Grizedale on Saturday, taking in most of the best descents the area has to offer (I think the only one we didn’t do was the one down to Nibthwaite). We ended up at the VC after coming down Boulder Alley, I suggested doing the Black as it would be close by and I wanted to try it myself. We went and got some advice in the shop first and were told it’s a lot steeper than it looks in video and watch out for this and that. All of us were disappointed after riding it, especially after what we’d already done and the effort of riding up the bridleway for such a short descent (I know there are other ways up). It sounds like I’m really knocking it, if you’re the type to keep pushing up the trail and doing multiple runs, you’ll enjoy it. If you’re out a long ride and not doing the NFT, I’d stick to the usual suspects…Grandad, Dad and the Dentist, Satterthwaite, Devils Gallop, etc.

EDIT: To keep on topic I’ll add this. The bloke who Julia was talking to, more or less said “You can’t just ride down here on any bike, you’ll end up in a heap and it won’t be pretty”. Really? I suppose he had to say that from a safety perspective. There are much more dangerous bits around the forest that people ride on all kinds of bikes. 🙄

rudebwoy – Member
nobody should be able to buy a social house—

True, that’s what has caused a lot of the problems. It’s this that has created a shortage of these types of homes in certain areas, which is why the ones still owned by the housing authorities are given to the needy and vulnerable when they become available.
There are plenty of other properties available in less desirable towns and villages close-by. The choosy %$£”%^% won’t live there though!
I’ve seen plenty of cases where someone who has lived in their house for more than 50 years has been given the chance to buy for 5-6k. They can’t afford it so there son or daughter gives them the money instead. When the old dear dies, the son/daughter rents it out or sells it…not a bad investment on 5k!

tinsy – Member
I am my areas less desirable local..

+1 😀
I agree with the plan though! I’ve got mates who grew up in the same town as me, they’ve worked hard for years and still can’t afford to buy their own houses here. They should be the ones who have the chance of a council house, instead they are given to single mothers, the long-term unemployed and substance abusers or criminals!

Guatemala or Peru. Those kind of places are more of an adventure than American or Canada too.