You have my sympathy – I tore my MCL a couple of years ago:

Grade I tear and you should be ok after a couple of weeks of 'Rest Ice Compression & Elevation'

Grade II tear and it's more like 6 weeks – sound like this is what you may have done if 'sideloading' is so painful.

Either way my advice is to get yourself to a decent [private] sports physio. Sadly (but perhaps somewhat understandably) you can forget about the NHS if you are interested in getting back on the bike etc as soon as possible.

A decent sports physio should be able to do a full evaluation (first visit), and then perform treatment and recommeded rehab exercises for you to do daily – 2 years on and I still do regular 'knee-dips' on a wobble board as I also sprained my ACL. If you don't keep the strength & flexibility up it can become a recurrent injury ultimately requiring surgery

Good luck & a speedy recovery

I've got a Bern Brentwood XXL for my 61.5" head.
Highly recommended over the Giro G10 it replaced (the Giro seemed HUGE!!! in comparison)
Really comfy and adequately vented for my sweaty head even when hiking and has kept my head warm down to minus 25ish.
Size wise, the XXL is probably just a tad too big for me as I'm at the bottom of the range, but the XL felt like it would pinch the forehead after prolonged use as my head is long & narrow rather than fat & wide!

Got mine from Bargain Boards, who were good to deal with.

Explosion In a Spaghetti Factory is right on the money! I've adopted the same proceedure in order to avoid trying to get an olive over splayed braid. Also worth having a couple of spare 'split' olives. These can then be widened a little to help ease them over the cut end.

And the sharper the cable cutters the better I reckon!

It is also worth trying to work out how much of the resort you are going to use in multi area resorts.

Likewise in Chamonix – if you are only there for a few days it can work out cheaper just to buy a lift pass for the area you are going to e.g. Le Tour or Brevent-Flegere as a 6 day Chamonix pass (i.e. excluding Aiguille du Midi) is 200 Euros!

Only way I know to get significantly cheaper lift pass is to buy a season pass during the summer. My 'early bird' season lift pass for Fernie BC worked out cheaper than a 14 day pass when purchased last June

In my experience it's the pan and any residue left in it that makes the melted snow taste burned (burned rubber actually!) if you don't use a little melted water to start things off … oh and add a little snow at a time and letthat melt rather than just filling a pan with snow and cranking the heat up

I've got the POC spine ergo and highly recommend it. I purchased it for Snowboarding but also use it for longboarding.

I had a spectacular wipeout on the longboard earlier this year which resulted in me flying through the air and landing quite awkwardly on my back – but was able to stand up and walk away with just bruises and scratches thanks to the POC back protector .

Are you limited to a week? If not then don't discount British Columbia (although Whistler in Feb might be a tad busy …). I think 7 days is too short for a 9 or so hour flight, but 10 to 14 days or more is definitely worth it, especially if you've enjoyed Winter Park. Canadian dollar exchange rate isn't great at the moment but then neither is the Euro.

Catered Chalets aren't as common as Europe, but if there are a few of your sharing a Condo it can work out quite reasonable.

Canadian 'spring break' or 'reading week' can get quite busy but still nowhere near most busy French resorts during February

I've been to La Thuile a few times and really enjoyed it. There are no drag lifts on the Italian side of 'espace san bernardo'. Lift queues are almost no existant and the resort is refreshingly devoid of bangin' euro-choons' and other apres nonsense. You can heli-board/ski from there if you fancy it. The international connection to La Rosiere often closes if there are high winds and as others have said there are loads of drag lifts on that side.

Worth Considering Courmayeur & Pila as well. If you have access to a car you can easily do a tour of the resorts in the valle d'aosta. Local food, wine and coffee are great!

Can't recommend Curtis Bikes enough – I've got an XC130 (now known as XC LT) and it's a smashing bike – great fun to ride! … I want another …

Buy one – you know it makes sense. They aren't cheap but I do think they are good value for money (even more so when you consider the XC & FR have free frame repair for life!)

I'll try and find a photo of mine, but in the mean time I can tell you that I really like my Orange Blood.

I'm also 6' 1" and ride the 17" but this isn't an issue as like others have said the top tube is quite long. I've got a double ring and E-Thirteen chain device with coil Lyriks fitted. I was very pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to ride it uphill albeit in a steady-away manner and descending just puts such a massive grin on my face whatever the type of trail.

The only slight niggle I've had is that the slightly low BB height combined with the 83mm BB shell and my somewhat wide choice of pedal with the Easton Flatboy means that pedaling up the deep ruts/single track on the likes of Cut Gate Path can be a tad frustrating but then that's not really the point of a bike like this

Got mine from Wheelpro as well and fitted them on my Orange Blood. Great pair of wheels – worth that little bit extra for the 'Roger treatment'

Can't recommend them enough! I've done both days as well and the missus has done the first day twice (if that makes sense)

My riding came on leaps and bounds (and litle bunnyhops) as a result – Paul & Jon are great and spend 1-2-1 time with everyone in the group.