Surfr – Saw a few people cheating on the tarmac of the initial climb, didn’t look like they were real contenders for the prizes so I didn’t report their numbers. It is very unsporting though.

Did any one have any tyres that actually rolled through or over the ‘plasticine’ mud in the woods in the second half of the course?

Maxxis Ignitor on the front, Crossmark on the back. Only time I had a foot down in eight laps was running at 2am when the slight uphill section at the start was like an ice-rink.

The ‘Somme Woods’ were unanimously the best bit of the course for our team, really good fun to ride. Other riders on the course weren’t a problem, as there was plenty of line choice. If you were stuck behind someone for 10s or so, it was low-paced enough to have some banter.

One of the few that fit me well are Nike Roubaix armwarmers. Should still be able to find stock in some places.

‘Easy route’ was indeed about 20s quicker, and definitely way more fun than the other option. One of our guys on his second lap noticed a larger-gentleman almost beat him by taking the easy option, so thereafter that’s what we did. Saved ~20s and a tiny bit of climbing, which is a significant saving on effort on sub 45min laps.

Awesome weekend, thanks to all the lovely exchanges while overtaking, we definitely couldn’t have made 2nd Open Men (4th overall) without all the nice people letting us past.

+1

Lots of pros teams did (maybe still do) run shimano 10spd chains with SRAM powerlinks in. Shouldn’t be an issue.

Not so much that Kona got upset, but it’s best to assume they might and only offer a reduced price replacement rather than a warranty replacement.

In the pursuit of fairness, I can name five people who’ve cracked eight Scott carbon frames between them. I know lots of people have success with them, but that’s just two many for my tastes.

Photo for those asking…

Nevermind, don’t want to jeopardise Neil’s chance of getting a new one.

It really does sound as if this frame was abused or crashed previously, it is a very odd failure mode under normal conditions. I wonder what Kona have to say about this…

Re: Kona tubing; the previous generation of scandium Kulas were manufactured by a German firm (the name of which escapes me right now) and shipped to Taiwan to be painted. The current ones have the whole shebang done in the Far East.

Dodgy welds? I’d go for shit pilot!

Current (Identical Kula) has been going fine for a year now, even doing some slightly silly stuff. Previous one (also Scandium) has three years with me, and is currently still been given a weekly beating by it’s current owner.

Any frame carries risk, two of my riding mates have just cracked two 15yo steel Dynatechs, and two 5yo alloy Giants. Luckily neither was as catastrophic as the above.

On my first carbon frame this year, loving it so far.

Oh, and just for good measure, the phone-number-recognition actually uses a regular expression to find the phone numbers, then makes them into a special kind of hyperlink that dials that number. No copying anything anywhere, unless we want to get into a discussion about memory management and system calls.

( Yes, I know that’s being addressed soon, but it really should have been there from the start. Considering that you can select a phone number on a web page and say dial … that must imply that the data has been copy-pasted to the phone application … so why not across the rest of the OS ? )

What? Do you think that all data in an OS gets from one place to another via copy and paste???

I think it was possibly more the mechanics of the copy-and-paste UI that were a bit hard to develop. All sorted from this Wednesday though.

Fire XCs – Don’t clear quickly.
Conti Explorers – Don’t grip. Anything.

Terry – You racing Fort Bill this weekend? Find me if you are, my SO looking for a team.

Dry: Maxxis Ignitor front, Crossmark rear (Like every other race this year, I’m not one for wasting time with tyres)

Wet: Completely different bike with conti 1.5s.

AB – Artist and piece name?

Yeah, it’ll be open. You should be able to ride all the natural goodness set out for the race too.

Both of these I find hysterical.

Not seen the pics yet, but I would suspect Gareth (Montgomerie), seeing as he’s ridden for STW in the past.

Genetics + training. Might do some training next year.

allyharp – Release cycle is one year. Carriers use ‘when the next model comes out’ as a method of making customers stay with them in the hope they can save the hassle of switching to O2.

iPhone is like XTR, if you can’t afford and/or justify one or the replacement parts, then go somewhere else and whine about your shitty make-do version, and leave the rest of us to enjoy our purchases.

Pricing now up on o2 site.

PAYG:
iPhone 3G 8GB – £342.50
iPhone 3G S 16GB – £440.40
iPhone 3G S 32GB – £538.30

Nuts. Would really like one to replace my 1G iPhone, don’t think i can justify almost £500 on a phone.

The great thing about Twitter is you can choose who to follow, and ignore the boring people. You can also ignore the whole thing, maybe that’s what you should try.

Can recommend a Fiesta. I have an 02 4-door 1.4 Zetec. Reliable (so far), room for one bike behind the front seats and loads of gear, or up to three bikes easily with the seats down.

£6k will get you a lot of car.

It’s Oceanic Airlines 815 all over again.

trail_rat – Where did you get your £5 photo from?

Some of the band’s lyrics weren’t particularly family-friendly, nor was the the female vocalists dancing.

Almost no one buys shimano replacement rings unless they’re minted… Just go over to CRC and pick some up there or even buy a chainset there that’s heavily reduced (eg old square taper ones) with the right chainrings.

Based on a survey of at least one person.

Stream crossing after the tunnel was a bit sketchy, I improved my fertility no end when the dude in front of me (on a Scalpel iirc) stopped dead and I ran into the back of him catching my crotch on the saddle. Had to stand at the side of the track for a minute or so to breath through my teeth.

Good day though, got the 1st, 4th and 5th fastest recorded times, although rumour has it that Mr Barlow was pulling 48 minute laps in-between touting Dirt School.

Have a rendez for racing in the wet, just for the rear. Super grippy on even the wettest rootiest climbs. Is a lot faster than an Advantage.

Tried it on the front, but it feels really odd when steering.

JRA review: http://www.justridingalong.com/news/product-reviews/maxxis-rendez-review/

Blairadam, Pittmedden, Badaguish, David Marshall Lodge, Mugdock Park, Dumyat (plus Mine Woods above Bridge of Allan).

Carbon-style cages are pretty crappy at holding bottles in, wouldn’t fancy losing a bottle in a race due to one.

Stainless steel cages are the way to go, firm hold, and won’t mark your bottles like alloy.

If it’s anything like our Springer, he’ll be really interested in the cat if it runs, but if he gets close, the cat will quickly show who’s boss.

Great dogs, ours turned 12 last week[/url], still a nutter, still biddable!

Probably the usual crap courses.

A return to Trentham Gardens for SITS? Pleeeeeaaasee!

Jey!

Meeeeeeeeeee!

Gordy – Going soft eh?

Just announced on the news that The Assembly has deferred their decision on the matter till 2011. Bets on this being buried?

Is tarmac all the way from Fort Bill to the venue. Nice and wide, off the road.

Keep using the spreadsheet.

Agreeing with specializedneeds here, you’re only going to be in big-big and small-small by accident or inexperience. Cross-chaining is a dreadful thing, and severely shortens the lifespan of the chain and other components if done often.

A medium cage doesn’t stop you from doing this, although the slack chain should be a warning that you need to select a better gear.