Ordered in Pearl Black, will look awesome with the black stanchioned Revs and black wheels….can’t wait!

Cheers Pinch, that’s what I’m erring to….after years of steel HTs I quite fancy giving Alu a shot.

A few observations:

In the last ‘syndicate’ episode Bryce looked genuinely choked up that Peaty was leaving….can’t be good for his head game, he needs a year out and I think the idea of Peaty running a team with Josh as sole rider is a brilliant one…let’s hope it happens.

Gee is injured, he plays it down ‘robo-Gee’ style as he comes across and will rarely admit to it but it was magnanimous of him to give his spot up to Kerr for the WC run, Kerr did it justice too….anyone who thinks Gee has gone off the boil should watch any of the Red bull Hardline edits, the lad can still make world class riders look ordinary….he’s having some bad luck that’s all.

Mike Jones?….what happened?….he seemed the coming man but has now been eclipsed by Greenland, hopefully some friendly rivalry will bring them both up another notch.

Sam Dale and Matt Simmonds seem to have gone off the boil and the OAP Beaumont is making them look silly.

Re. Fairclough, when I lived in Surrey I saw him on a semi regular basis….he was always with mates at the dirt jumps in Milford, he has crazy skills but compare that to when I’ve been booked on uplift days and shared a minibus with other British pros….i obviously don’t know his training regime but on observation it doesn’t look good….still if by cocking around with Sam Reynolds and Ollie Wilkins he can make a lucrative living then why not?!….i just can’t help but think there’s unfinished business in DH there, his season when he was teammates with Sam Hill was his best, I’d like to see more of that.

Greg Williamson has been the revelation for me this year, for years I was hard on him criticising that plum Trek ride he seemed to hang on to but he’s stepped it up this season and I’m happy to eat humble pie, good on the lad.

All things considered British DH is in rude health, it must make the other nations twitch especially as we don’t have any real mountains here!….long may it continue.

Good shout, sadly only available in small….would be looking for medium or at least 16.5+ size….17 would be perfect.

Reading Yunki’s posts is like the ramblings of stroppy sixth former….receiving money is a reward for doing something, if someone chooses to do nothing with their time then they get nothing in return, simple really….and fair for everyone else working to provide for the workshy in society.

With Peaty finally retiring, Josh will now be seen as a senior rider.

This.

The ankle has healed, may be some lingering psychological effects but the Peaty factor is by far larger…..he could hide in his shadow so to speak and just quietly develop and become a winning rider…..now Josh is where Peat would have found himself mentally when he was younger and signed decent contacts with big teams in the 90s and early 00s…did Peaty have a mentor like Josh?…..this is something Josh is going to have to figure out himself, he can’t have Peat holding his hand forever.
Shame as others have said, he can look settled on the bike like no other and yet still win, his win at MSA a year or so ago was great and the infamous ankle break run he was fast and barely pedaled to that almost certain gold.

Pacenti TL28 or DL31, both light and wide enough for today’s tyres….both readily built up with whatever hub spacing takes your fancy on Superstar’s site.
I plan to fit some DL31 wheels in 26 variety to a 650b hardtail this year to create something super stable and low….On-One Dee Dar is looking like a front runner at the moment….will also give me loads of mud clearance using 26 inch wheels in 650b forks.

There might be a mk2 Ragley Piglet for sale on here soon, mint condition, 26 wheels etc…. It’ll be frame only though.

Thank you chaps, general consensus (on other forums) is that an 11-32 will work with my reasonably new 105 groupset, the 53/39 chainset is killing me up here in Wales!….it was fine down south.

Never heard of the padlock system?

I use the 661 helmet which saved my good looks at Antur on Monday and the 661 knee pads were excellent too.

Interesting, the other half and I were just commenting on how dull ELO are…no stage presence whatsoever.

But, yeah the string section are pleasing on the eye.

Looked at Oz a few years ago, meet the criteria and would earn more but stayed for family reasons…..providing I stay in my current career it’s always an option.

Because I simply don’t believe in the EU as a legal entity or a superstate….as a free trade bloc I have no problem, if it had remained simply that then I’d probably have voted to stay….but various individuals and countries have been on a power grab for years and morphed it into a corrupt behemoth they can preside over with lovely salaries, pensions, allowances etc…

So elect them.

Would love to, trouble is the usual candidates from all parties consist of a grey list of late 20s/early 30s nominees whose profiles reads: studied PPE at Ox-Bridge, worked for the last 10 yrs for <insert party>, now standing for election in wherever….great, inspiring stuff.

Remember when everyone was chuffed to bits about Sarah Tether (remember her?!) being elected?….i just remember thinking what the hell has a 29 yr old got to offer parliament or the country!?….her background?….education and then a selection of non jobs as a ‘policy advisor’ for a number of organisations before contesting elections….absolute nonsense.
It’s Hobson’s choice these days when voting.

We elect MPs on the basis that they are the ones best placed to decide on issues,

That’s a joke, a huge number of MPs have left university and known nothing but how to be a researcher or runner for a particular party, then brown nose a job as an assistant to an existing MP, then get parachuted into a safe seat….that kind of person is not best placed to decide on the country’s issues.

Parliament should be full of ex servicemen, ex coppers, small business owners, retired DRs, the odd lawyer, union reps who have moved up from the shop floor, a couple of wealthy entrepreneurs etc etc….basically a mixed bag of people with life experience.

but I think it’s safe to say that they are not bound to simply ratify a result that over 500 of them disagree

See this is where politics has gone wrong for me, they are public servants, a referendum was held, it doesn’t matter if they like the result or not, they are duty bound to do as the electorate asks…..basically how it should work is you say “jump” and your MP replies “how high”…..things have become twisted in recent years where politicians now think they’re something special, they aren’t and you don’t need any qualifications to be an MP, says it all really.

BBC political correspondent Iain Watson says the petition has attracted a lot of attention but has zero chance of being enacted, because it is asking for retrospective legislation.
Our correspondent says some referendums do have thresholds but those clauses must be inserted in legislation before the vote so everyone is clear about the rules.
You can’t simply invent new hurdles if you are on the losing side, our correspondent says.

View from the Beeb, I think we’ll be out and annoying the EU by doing surprisingly well.

Nice, not only sore losers but seemingly willing to commit fraud in order to push their agenda….you couldn’t make it up.

I think one thing’s fairly clear, they don’t actually want to leave any more than a petulant teenager wants to leave their parents’ cooking, heating, washing, ironing, chauffeuring, etc, etc, etc…

Massive generalisation.

I voted to leave and I’m more than happy with the decision.

I got fed up with British legal decisions being overturned by a European court, I got fed up with how a common trading area (a good idea by the way) had become a European state with a parliament of all things!, I got jittery about the talk of a European army, I got fed up with poor countries like Greece fudging their books to join simply to go on the take….their economy failing (surprise surprise) and then watched in disbelief as a spiteful EU dictated terms to them and effectively blackmailed them into staying…..the corruption on all sides has become staggering.

But yeah, the referendum must be wrong, only those wanting to stay can be right etc etc blah blah boring cry some more…..

Where has all this ‘it takes 5-10 yrs to negotiate a trade agreement’ come from?

Looking at what exists now around the world, agreements between the EU and South Korea took 2 years (negotiations started in 2007 and it were signed in 2009!)

The euro process was started in 1999 and actually introduced in 2002 (a massive project and only 3 yrs).

The original 6 member states of Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy and Luxemburg only took 6 years (1951-58) to establish the forerunner to the EU and that was starting from scratch with no template to work from.

There really are some ‘glass half empty’ types in here who could even be accused of scaremongering in the way they have accused the Leavers and the supposed ramifications of the decision.

I’m guessing the US, Germany and China are top of the list for us but are we for them?

I think you’ll be surprised, Germany for example exports a huge amount to us….far more than we do to them….think they’re going to want to shoot themselves in the foot and lose out on all that money?, this works both ways, I wish more of the doom mongers could see that.

China for example could be negotiated with to allow virtually duty/tax free deals on imports to the UK, basically look at how they currently import to the EU and then undercut that deal so ours is more favorable….that’s how business works.

Countries were trading with each other long before the EU, same will happen now, it’s always about money and economies and seeing as we’re one of the larger I don’t foresee any problems negotiating trade deals.

Re. the speed of these deals, I can go along with Brexiteer politicians telling us it will be a faster process outside of the EU…..it’s basic stuff, who will negotiate faster, an organisation trying to please 20-odd countries and their individual vested interests or a single country one on one with a potential trading partner?

The cries of doom are hilarious btw, carry on.

Tragic

Nope, they’re welcome to their failing, lumbering, behemoth, corrupt bloc of countries….we’ll see how much France and Germany like making up Britain’s contribution now.

Maybe the EU should’ve listened when the UK asked for certain reigning in of beaurocracy and cuts to spending, immigration etc.

Let’s end this pathetic Out nonsense.

Lol, yes let’s force through something to reverse what was a perfectly democratic process…..jesus wept, the crying over the result is unreal.
I hate Labour, never vote for them but if they win an election I take it on the chin, it would be nice to see some grace from the people who lost the Remain campaign.

and the people at the bottom who voted out as a protest could be bought off with radical reforms and investment to address the issues around low wages, social decay, social mobility, public services and housing</fantasy land>

And who would pay for this socialist utopia, the EU who we’ve just told to shove it?…or this country with massive personal and governmental debt?….spending money is easy when it’s not yours eh?….just ask Greece.

If it was even remotely profitable it would be fought over and probably sold ages ago, that’s how business works.

Whether we’re in the EU or not has very little to do with it…..unless potential new buyers were hoping the EU was going to subsidise their nice little purchase, in which case it’s not really a business is it if governments and grants are having to keep something limping along while providing a very nice backhander for the new owners?

Fact is it can’t compete with cheap global steel.

Nonsense, there was a vote in 1975 to enter the EU (or EEC as it was known then)…. I’m sure they’ll be a vote to re-enter at some point in the future perhaps under a Labour government…..personally I’d sooner see the whole thing dissolve and go back to nation’s states just trading with each other under favourable conditions….the rest of the beaurocratic nonsense can get lost, we don’t need a European parliament for example!

Please God let the Scots go, they can have their independence, Westminster can stop subsidizing the country and Scotland can become Europe’s problem instead.
This is an excellent week!

Here’s a crazy notion, if the political elite had actually listened to the working class about immigration instead of guffawing into their wine glasses and calling everyone racists who mentioned it then maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation.

All the parties got it wrong, while immigration wasn’t a problem to them on their 60k+ salaries and nice country retreats, it is seen as a big issue by a massive amount of people (rightly or wrongly)…..were they all asleep while UKIP et al gained council seats, MEP seats etc?!?

If the government had bothered to bring in the skills/points based system that Australia use and the electorate have been crying out for then maybe this referendum needn’t have happened?….classic case of politicians forgetting they are public servants and in position to do our bidding and not vice versa.

The political elite brought this on themselves by refusing to have a proper debate in immigration…..before some smart arse chips in yes I know immigration is an economical net contributor but a lot of the Brexit voters don’t know or care about that, they wanted an overhaul of the system, they wanted to easily deport bogus asylum seekers….they felt frustrated because everytime this looked like happening we had to abide by EU rules and let people into the country with criminal records, allow failed asylum seekers to stay because they’d taken their case to the European court etc….no wonder huge swathes of the electorate felt we’d lost control.

Now, if the UK can introduce a skills/points based immigration system and start deporting freeloaders without having to go to a European court we’ll be making progress in my opinion. The highest court in the land should be in the UK not Brussels and verdicts handed down here shouldn’t be challenged abroad, ridiculous and hopefully a lot of this farcical nonsense will stop now we’re out.

(Scotland, enjoy your independence without a Westminster subsidy!….you can become the EU’s problem instead).

Then the EU has a short memory, it’s when someone is trying to bend the UK over and screw us that ‘we’ tend to be at our most antagonistic best, they’d do well to show some grace and shake our hand for 40+yrs of good membership….but no, as someone else said they’ll want to punish the UK for leaving their expensive little club.

I’m more than happy with a few years of pain if it means I can stick two fingers up to Brussels in a couple years time and say “we did it, and without you”….

Edit: the EU are pissy because they’ve lost a net contributor, who’s going to fund the new roads and infrastructure in the poorer countries lining up to join now?….oh dear France and Germany, looks like it’s on you again!

Greece to go next?

This is interesting, you could extrapolate the arguments of the last few pages to by-elections, general elections etc….there is always a poor turn out in virtually everything like this…..the ‘uneducated of Essex’ swing voters, have they studied the manifestos?…should they really be deciding the outcome of elections?….at some point you’re on a slippery slope to banning the proles from voting or having to introduce some kind of IQ and current affairs exam before allowing anyone near a polling booth.

It’s democracy, everyone (no matter how pig thick) gets to vote….brilliant isn’t it!

And yet there is a queue of gullible monied men out there who can’t wait to part with their hard earned for one!

If you honestly believe the magazine bullcrap that these bikes ride two to three times better than frames costing a third to half of the amount then you need your head read.

Iffy as to whether I can commit to this due to work….but the British cycling website says you can pay on the day instead of paying now and potentially losing your money (in my case)….is this still the case?

Quite fancy giving the old steel Ragley a ride out!

‘tone up’ and more ‘definition’ come from not eating….bit extreme but you get the idea, calorie deficit, nobody came out of the concentration camps fat did they?….poor taste perhaps but you get the idea.
Eat less, move more.

I’ve lost a decent amount of fat in recent months due to poor health and other issues that have put me off food but I’ve kept active and the fat just disappears, you won’t necessarily feel great (unless you do it really slowly) until you get down to your target size/weight/definition and can then move into a maintenance diet as opposed to a calorie deficit one.

Weights are fine, as is cycling…i’ve always found it a nice combination although I appreciate bodybuilder size and cycling don’t really gel (unless you’re that freaky German track cyclist)….anyway, that’s my recent experience on the matter.

They’re not all that great, screen stopped working on my 5S….thought i’d try out the Apple store due to these ‘awesome’ stories you hear of people being given reconditioned devices for free or only paying a nominal amount for a new device….got told:

“yeah, the screen’s not working, you’re out of warranty, i can sell you one for £250″….

No thanks, local independent phone shop did the screen for £60 instead.

Sunringle?

Don’t get me started, for thousands of years they ate grass did they not!?

…then do-gooder women get involved (sorry to be sexist but it is usually women) and the next thing the horse is on this fot that and that for this, this for that etc….all snake oil if you ask me.

I should also add she works for the Welsh Cob and Pony society and is on reasonable money for the area.
I work as a paramedic but with so many well paid private jobs about I could go part time and still earn what I do currently for a three day week.
House also has stables, it was one of the criteria… if we sound like A-holes we’re really not, just got lucky with property.

They reckon it’s paving the way for Barel to head up a DH team on the WC circuit.

What with Dirt / Propain’s excellent results at the BDS this weekend and Gwin off to YT the established brands have got to be worried now!?….Dirt even have the Solid Strike in their Dirt-100 range which is also direct sale.

For the established brands to ignore this and hope it goes away seems an ostrich in the sand strategy, they must have had meetings about this!…..especially with Canyon hoping to open up to the US next too.

Either way, I’m in favour…..if it gets more talented kids the factory rides they deserve then all the better in my opinion.

My hardtail has 26/38 up front and an 11-36 cassette, never found myself wanting.

The four will be massively strong with only 130mm of travel and 35mm Pikes on the front, I like it but then weight had never bothered me…..i ride a 30lb HT most of the time and it’s a blast, ‘poppy’ ‘snappy’ and and others cliches nobody on here has a clue about but trots out anyway.

I’d buy one, but the standard 5 looks too tempting for the uplift days I do.

Long live Orange, I must be one of the few who like the design, I like the British element however racist that may make me….i just wish they’d bring the price down but I suppose that’s what frame only is for?