downgrade – Bet me to that one, is the same frame as Barca posted above. Good stuff. Some of the crashes during the 11am race were hilarious, luckily everyone was OK though.

Looks like this…

The campsite this afternoon:

Postal staff worried about modernisation threatening their jobs? If every **** got to keep their jobs despite technological advances, we'd all still employ stablehands for the upkeep of the horses that WE NO LONGER HAVE, so they can buy 52" TVs for their 10*10" lounge.

If you're job is so hard, how come simple machines can do the same thing at 100 times the pace for 24/7/365 without a break?

Suspension bike in shock of looking like another suspension bike shocker!!!!

Big fan of the Cadabra, especially this one in the red:

mech hangers – rip off.

One shop I worked in bought 1000 mech hangers for £1 each. Sold them for £15.99 each or something similar. You'd be amazed how quickly you get through that many too.

Pace RC400.
Cotic Hemlock.

You got done, that's only eight months!

Get the manual, and follow the very long and repetitive bleed process to the letter. Works perfect every time for me.

If it's for SITS, you best carry the bike, since riding is likely to be near impossible if it's wet.

Yes it is.

Full course was brutal, even for a climber like me. Getting lost for 15minutes didn't help much.

Someone in the top ten gave me a tube when I punctured the second time on the southern upland way just after the inners climb. I think it was a guy on a white Giant with a Merida top? If I can find out who this was I'll gladly stick a tube in the post.

Blackbox is a little heavier, and having ridden both for some considerable time, I can't tell the difference (dislaimer, I'm light, so it's likely I'm not pounding the damping enough to see any benefit).

Current motion control also locks out fully, depends where you have the blow-off set.

IMO I'd save the £50.

Using the eXCeption version of these tyres in exactly the combo in the title. Wet, dry, muddy, whatever. Rear only defeated by very grassy mud (but then, apart from spikes, what isn't?). Tubeless on one bike, tubed on the other.

Run a Crossmark on the front occasionally, but only on racecourses with very little reliance on front wheel traction.

Ignitor does appear smaller than the Crossmark, but this is due to the rounded profile versus the square profile of the Xmark.

You lot are worse than a bunch of pros with you're "Ooh, not feeling so good, the legs are heavy" etc etc.

I'll be there, and going by last nights road ride, I'll be going good.

fbk – Inners open as usual.

Sorry to bring this back on topic; I use a MBP 15 (Mid 2008 one, 4GB RAM) along with a 23" ACD. It easily outpaces a colleagues Dual G5 2.5. For instance on one project we run a set of specs, MBP: 90seconds, G5:4 minutes.

Unless I found myself doing lots of HD video day-in-day-out (and lets face it, I'm a programmer most of the time, so not likely to happen soon), then I would get a Mac Pro, but the Core2Duos are more than powerful enough for almost any other media workload.

MBPs rumoured to be getting matte screen option for the 15" in September, so I'm waiting till that happens before replacing this one.

Calm down people, it's only a bicycle race event. You'll still manage to best last year's sub-six hour time.

Apart from the little steep section near the end, Minch Moor is the last major climb.

One section will be a bit muddy, but it's still semi-slick for the win on the back.

I'll maybe get a 29er for racing when I grow about 8", same for most folks methinks.

Jeez, i wish i could get that light (i'm 60kg/5'6"). Do you spend a lot of time hungry, or is it mad amounts of miles? Or both?

Stuff my face all the time, just had a pre-lunch snack of honey on brown bread as a good example. When I don't ride I lose weight (over a few months, not had to do that for years) due to loss of muscle. Is just the way I am, I try not to worry about it too much.

5'8" and 72kilos

59kg at the same height here. One of my goals for this year was to gain weight (muscle) in the hope of getting faster. I managed to put on 0.5kg, but that's totally within error on most scales.

Things like osteoporosis and osteoarthritis are fairly common in ex-pro cyclists, or in the case of Merckx and Hinault, a slight belly!

Pic of Hincapie's broken steerer: http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/road/2006/apr06/roubaix06/?id=/tech/2006/features/roubaix_postbikes

My query was because I had no recollection of it. Makes sense, since his two stage wins were in 1990. I was 5yo.

The steerer Hincape snapped was alloy. A Bontrager branded commuter fork, which had been swapped in for a little extra mud clearance.

Did Museeuw ever ride the TDF?

O'Grady not mentioned yet, such a hard worker for Saxo these days.

Not pointless if it got you all upset! We can do it all again next year!

Sean Kelly. Probably one of the hardest men on a bike ever.

Roll on monday, all you once-a-year experts will be back to hibernating and the rest of us will be free from these pointless discussions.

Here's hoping the arrogant dwarf wins tomorrow.

Saxo were still right up the front when it happened.

Nee naw nee naw nee naw

Was Wiggo up the front, can't see him on SD? HD looks amazing, need to move to somewhere that allows dishes for next year.

http://www.on-one-shop.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Suspension_368.html – £249, good buy if you really feel you need the carbon crown/steerer.

Find a bit of dowel that fits neatly inside the steerer tightly. Epoxy this in, then lengthen the steerer using a length of alloy steerer (ask for an offcut in the classifieds). Should be good go then.

On a more serious note, carbon crown/steerer assembly is pretty expensive, might be better to buy a new set of WC (On-One have them super cheap just now) or some other forks and sell your current ones on.

It would make an interesting televised execution if one of them does get in the way. I like the idea of giving the outriders tazers.

Only interesting if the rider isn't slowed or downed, and the perpetrator gets a good kicking. Seen it more than once.

Lets just hope it doesn't happen, and prepare for the crushage!

Slight exaggeration. Contador takes a tow up the climbs to save energy for attacks on the steeper stuff.

Oli does mtb because he enjoys it I imagine. Lots of MTBers of similar level have gone on to ride on the road and do well; Cadel (you might hate him, but he's had a great career on the road), Ryder Hesjedal (ripping it up this year), Dario Cioni and loads others I can't remember.

Interesting to note that Jean-Christophe Péraud (Olympic Silver 2008 XC) destroyed Sylvain Chavanel in this years French National TT Champs, but then, XC is closer to TT than RR is.

0.5 – 1 Million people on the Ventoux apparently. Going to be amazing atmosphere, just hope the idiots keep their flags etc away from the riders.

Yes. The climb yesterday was < 5% all the way up, no bother if you just hang in there, like the other 99 riders in the front group yesterday.

Cav needs a tow everywhere, to get over climbs, and to get to the finish near the front.

They use a 20mm spacer on the spring-rod. Is a 15 minute job to take it out or put it in, hardest bit is finding a socket that fits over the -ve air valve. Manuals on RS site are superb, makes it no bother to do.

Halfords Team == British Cycling.

Decent enough results, especially for Annie Last.

It is the best thing on the forum every year for me. Notice I only edited the name out, HAW HAW HAW!!!

Saved it, all is good.