Cheers – planning a days riding over that way sometime so I’ll take a look

A quick summary:

– They’re brakes that work fine.

– People on social media like the free ones they got.

– They ripped off Trick Stuff and then changed it a bit in typical Chinese style. Which some people don’t care about.

– They’re much cheaper than Trick Stuff.

– They’re a little cheaper than Hope.

– They’re not that much cheaper than Hope.

– They’re more expensive than Shimano, SRAM and Magura.

– They have unknown longevity and support unlike more established brands, nor do we know what their warranty is like.

– They’re Intense DH team are sponsored by them and use them racing, except when they run something else during a race.

And the OP was touched here and here by the internet.

I stick with what I’m comfortable with – run a combo of High Rollers/Minions/lately Assegai for literally decades now. Tried Schwalbe on a bike for a few weeks once and just didn’t gel with them – amazing how very different they felt. Not just me either – big group of mates all ride Maxxis tyres I think.

Someone at the new school (unknown to us) saw where the applicant was from, blabbed 

Find out who this person is and then bombers and frozen sausages

As soon as I saw the rumours about Tuchel, you just knew it’d be followed up by all the gammons moaning about him being a German in charge of England. Honestly, who actually cares? In terms of chances of success, his track record is head and shoulders above any manager the national team have had for decades so maybe, just maybe, at the WC in 2 years we might actually win it and stop having to talk about x years of hurt, living on past glories of a WC won 60 years ago etc.

Stuff like seeing the DM article above and listening to some of the red faced Brexit supporters on Talksport yesterday makes me (even more) ashamed to be English. In other news, I have next to no care about the national team. Watched a bit of it the other night – Alexander-Arnold spannering balls all over the place in the hope something sticks and is a “wonder pass”, Bellingham strutting around the pitch like he’s Zidane, Pele, Beckenbaur and Ronaldo all rolled into one etc. What a loathsome group of football players.

Back to proper football this weekend. Come on Leeds (with our German manager who oddly, at no point has it crossed my mind that I should dislike him because of something that happened 100 years ago when a mentalist took a country to a world war)

Where are people riding? In 30 years of riding mountain bikes, I’m struggling to recall a single issue with a dog.

We definitely need more sub-genres for what is a “mountain bike”.

In previous years a 170mm bike would be purely an enduro bike. Possibly a bikepark bike. We’d say that the new Scott Ransom can definitely still be pressed into enduro race duties. But it’s rather too, shall we say, ‘sophisticated’ to be a bikepark shredder. Yet we principally think it behaves perfectly well as a trail bike. Dare we say ‘all mountain’ bike?

Or maybe Super Trail bike?

Cool, thats made it crystal clear then.

This is a purpose built playground built for lazy people

I assume the idiot who made this comment expects the likes of Sam Hill etc to ride up Mont St Anne before their runs? BPW is one of the most fun places in the UK to ride a bike…

theres a magazine?

Every cloud etc.

A big jacket. Or an oil filled radiator – we had some building work done last winter which meant the back of the house was missing for the coldest 2 months of the year. I work from home so borrowed a little oil filled rad from a friend and used it in my home office – was nice and toasty, warmed up quick and didn’t make a noticeable different to the leccy bill.

I think its you guys who my wife (she has MS so her mobility has gone down the pan) has used before to sample bikes at LUBP. She has nothing but massively positive words to say about your organisation – good luck in the search for someone!

Tried to message someone the other day who’d previously sent me a very nice, huge message on some route advice. As such, the message went off the bottom of the page but there is no scroll bar etc so I couldn’t actually get to the bottom of the message and reply to him. Tried on windows and android. Deleting the message didn’t work either.

Stalked him on FB in the end and sent him a message via messenger…

I’ve tried Auto Finesse glass polish. Absolute garbage (like most of their other products to be fair).

After that all fine and the wind screen is Not weaker.

So someone shaved a layer off your car windscreen and its not weaker? OK…

Business sellers only – a huge percentage of the cheap, explod-ey tat on ebay is being sold by business sellers who are getting it en-mass from China whether they try and sell it for what it is or tart it up and put some significant spin on it and try and make it “premium” (see the adverts all over social media for “cool” e-bikes with hipster types riding them through the mean streets of Brighton etc – still cheap Chinese tat).

I had one of the very first SuperX frames probably a good 25 years ago now. One of the few bikes I miss… Also had 2x S1s which I also miss – every superlative you’ve ever read about steel frames in a single package. No other steel frame I’ve ever had rode like they did.

My parents had a Tiguan and have just changed it for a Qashquai. Both hateful things in equal measure but from what I’ve experienced of both, I think I’d get the Tiguan (these are new ones though – the Tiguan was 4 years old when they got rid and they’ve had the Nissan for about 6 months). Just a much nicer car to be inside vs the Nissan, looks (subjective when dealing with white goods metal boxes) win for the VW I reckon. Are there any BMW X1/X3s in budget? Much nicer than either…

Actually scrap that – I’d get another Passat estate. Bad back would be more preferable to either of the above.

One of my favourite films :(

Strange bike, equally strange review!

Its not a review, its a copy & paste press release from someone at Lauf who must be so full of bullsh*t that it spilled out onto their keyboard when writing that stuff.

I’ve always wanted a XC bike that’ll take a 3″ tyre.

Liked some of their early lockdown-era stuff but they’ve gone downhill since IMHO. Churning out loads of crap instead of smaller amounts of decent stuff…

Im a fan of a bit of Whinlatter North then up Grisdale pike, from there the world is your oyster .. Whiteless pike / Rigg beck  .. or  Sail and Rigg beck . or just off to top of Grisedale back into the trail centre.

Any tips for this? Watched someone’s video (Street Pigeon?) on YT for this ride and didn’t realise the Grisdale Pike bit is cheeky (not too bothered about that – we’ll be doing it on a Friday in November so doubt it’ll be busy!) but the woodsey stuff off the back of it back toward the trail centre looked pretty good…

Also, any idea if there’s any cheek/off-piste in Whinlatter?

A side note – if anyone hasn’t done already, I suggest you read Bob’s autobiography (or listen to it – its available on Spotify now!). Its superb. Read it about 18 months ago and am listening to him read it now which is even better.

Increasingly, facebook. Used to like it a lot for keeping in touch with friends all over the world but also used various groups as an alternative to the forums (many of which inevitably died) but the groups especially seem to be becoming a minefield of scammers and utter cretins to the point where I’ve removed myself from half the groups I was in this morning and left myself in a tiny handful which are carefully managed. That said, I can see a point very soon where I bin it off completely – did the same a few years back with instagram where every time I went on it, it just pissed me off (and I don’t miss it in the slightest) and facebook is rapidly going the same way.

And Antony has found his level where he looks half decent vs Barnsley (still had to stretch a foot out to win the pen).

We stayed here earlier in the year. Wanted somewhere central’ish between the sights and Gare du Nord:

ibis Paris Grands Boulevards Opera 9th – ALL (accor.com)

Cheap, excellent breakfasts, everything you needed from a room to kip for the night, 10 minute walk from Gare du Nord, 20 minutes walk to the Champs Elysees/Louvre etc via the Place Vendome. Spent a full day walking around without using the Metro plus theres an excellent bistro 20 seconds from the hotel – Faubourg 34.

I get the road running training thing. I try as much as possible to do a mix during my runs – got an old tarmac railway line near me I use to get some easy distance, a nice few miles off road on a flood bank by the river and some nice quiet country lanes with decent footpaths alongside I can use. What I can’t get my head around is the people who do laps of the racecourse near me – 3ish km tarmac loop inside it littered with dog walkers and kids on bikes and you see loads of people lapping it. Definition of mundane – I like to treat my running like my rides and see some scenery!

Thats poor from the council – I’ve never lived anywhere that cardboard/paper, plastics & metals aren’t collected by the council. We have just had to start paying for garden waste to be collected which caused uproar (people saying they’ll just put it in their general waste bins etc – good for them if they have room after 2 weeks!) but I believe theres no legal (?) obligation for councils to collect garden waste – is there a legal obligation for councils to collect recycling???

I sat in Five Guys on Tuesday night in Kings Cross and watched the general carnage outside. Were there “cyclists” (ie, people on bikes, not what I’d call “cyclists”) riding on pavements/riding the wrong way down the road/skipping red lights? Yes to all the above. Were there also cars skipping red lights/a blacked out 7 series doing laps of the block driving like a prick etc? Yes. Were there pedestrians walking out on a red man causing traffic to stop/swerve/beep? Yes. Was there a single policeman visible to witness or apply the long arm of the law to any of these people? No.

Staff and fund the police force sufficiently before suggesting such mental initiatives Lord Speaking-Out-Your-Hole

What would be a good time for a first marathon?

Depends on a load of factors – I did my first (and only!) marathon 2 years ago. Only ran once or twice a week and only usually to about 1.5 hours. During my training I tried to up it but only broke the half marathon distance once during training about a month before the actual event but didn’t feel too bad afterwards. Wanted a sub 4h30m and got something annoying like a 4h31m but the sense of achievement was incredible. Would I do another? Maybe but I’ve barely done anymore running since until a couple of months ago when I entered a local 10k which I’d done before and enjoyed. Started training by basically going straight up to 10k again from the off but was finding it difficult to get up to my pre-marathon fitness in such a short space of time but did the race last weekend, aiming for a sub 55 minute plod and did a 53. Can’t comprehend how some people were doing 32s (5 minute miles!)…

Plan is to keep it up as its just easy exercise and once past the first mile or so, its actually enjoyable once you get into a groove…

 as he attempted to ride out of town he fell off breaking his arm and wrist in the process

Purely accidental I assume :)

@daveyboywonderthey have traveled about 35 miles to come and get it.

Yikes, so hardly opportunistic then. Wonder how they knew about it… and if those scrotes know about it and you’ve been targetted before, how many other scrotes know about the bikes. As others have said, I’d be beefing up security even more (more locks and a far stronger door) and definitely getting an alarm fitted and motion sensing cameras/flood lights etc. Scrotes won’t like being illuminated by millions of lumens of spot light whilst theres alarms going off…

Alternatively, move house.

Mint advert for airtags though…

I’ll never knock the police as friends/family are/were coppers but as above, what exactly is the point of them in this story? What have they done apart from have a snoop around in the dark and find some broken doors? Unbelievable…

You say the bike ended up in Brum – how far away from you @renton is that? How far did they travel to break into a garage to nick a bike?

The photo epic article on PB is better than the actual video IMHO. Some stunning shots that show the massiveness of it all more than the video seems to do.

Either the very best standard mk5 Golf GTI you can find or an ED30 (likely to be more leggy). Had a mk5 GTI before as well as a mk2 Octavia VRS with the same engine and you wouldn’t believe it was the same underneath – the Golf was really well built and felt quick and fun to drive. The Octavia was good but awful build quality and never felt that quick. Mk6 has the TSI engine which internet hearsay reckons isn’t as good as the TFSI in the mk5. I also really like the mk4 GTI Anniversary.

I’ll chuck a Mini Clubman into the equation as well as a past owner. One of the few cars I REALLY miss. Plenty of Cooper S, post 2010 facelift cars with the N18 engine around for that price. 4/5 seats, reasonable boot and just really good fun.

Don’t think they were JWs but I had a knock at the door a few weeks ago. Thought it was the youngest coming back from playing out so my heart sank when I saw it was two religious types. Can’t remember how they introduced themselves but I very nicely interrupted them and explained my lack of time/care for anything even remotely religious and so I’m probably not worth wasting their time on. They thanked me, wished me a nice day, I wished them one back and they left. Didn’t even leave me any literature. Very pleasant.

Its on an RS4, there the same brembos as a lambo hence the cost!

In that case, suck it up and use some of the budget you normally set aside for running a car like this each year.

Certain cars are like this – my transporter of a similar age and mileage to the Audi suffers from corroded bolts underneath. Before doing anything with it I’m usually ordering replacements in the knowledge that something will snap or I’ll need to get brutal removing them.

Compare that to my old Mini Clubman and my current Merc that I was underneath at the weekend replacing the springs on and every bolt is as clean as a whistle and dead easy to remove (11 plate on ~65k miles). Maybe its just a VAG thing…

EDIT: Embed fail but fk it, its Friday

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Full set of recon 4-pot/6-pot Porsche Brembos are usually sub £1000 with fittings for Audi platforms so £1500 for a single caliper is taking the piss.