Bike theft is a massive issue at Cwmcarn, we were there late last summer and uniformed Police were around talking to all the riders they could.

The problem has been so bad apparently that the Police have been using covert surveillance to try and catch the thieves, including officers concealed in the trees and bushes around the area. It must be pretty bad if they’re going to those lengths.

I know lots of people who have had bikes stolen out of parked cars. And there are lots of reports of riders being followed home from Cwmcarn.

Be very careful.

You know what, I’ve ridden for years and years. Miles and miles, multi-days, back-to-back, in the mountains and in the desert and everywhere in-between, and I have never, ever felt the need to lubricate my ass in any way, shape or form.

Am I just lucky? Or do I just have a hard-ass?

And you’re completely right, why am I even reading this thread?

As you were.

You’ll certainly get your money’s worth out of dual-ply DH tyres, Minions or High Rollers would be perfect. If you run them with DH tubes at a reasonable pressure you could well get away without any punctures at all, depending on how tidy your riding is. Buy your tyres and tubes before you go, there are loads of bike shops out there but they are significantly more expensive, especially if you’re used to paying on-line prices at home.

The Bikefax guide is good, but in reality you can’t miss the main runs around Morzine / Les Gets and you’ll easily get loads of info from other riders. It’s all super-easy to find. Go up a lift and you’ll see the trails heading back down, you’ll pick it up in no time.

The spares you take are up to you, but I’d recommend a mech-hanger as they can be hard to get depending on your bike, maybe a rear mech if you have a spare one kicking around and you’re prone to abusing them, but you can get them out there no problem. Take some spare brake pads, especially if your brakes are unusual. People bang on about going through six sets of pads in a week, but in reality, if your pads are bedded in properly, a new set will get you through the week just fine, unless it’s wet and muddy.

You don’t say what kind of bike you have, but if it’s an XC bike then think about getting some wider, heavier-duty wheels. £150 spent at Superstar on a set of DH wheels might end up being good value for money in the long run. Getting wheels re-built keeps the bike shops in Morzine in business very nicely, it’s not cheap out there, but you can often get it done same day.

It’s a great place to get your first Alps fix as it’s all so easy to find, and there’s loads to go at given the length of time you’ll be there. Give yourself time to get used to the size of the mountains and the speed you’ll pick up. It is very different to the last descent at your local trail centre, you will be going much faster in a much shorter space of time.

Full-face helmet for sure and goggles, or glasses if you really don’t like goggles, arms and legs definitely, back protector recommended, or go for a pressure-suit. You don’t want to bin-it on your first day and ruin the rest of your holiday.

The ‘do’s’ go for a beer after your last run down, and jabber on with all the other riders about your day on the hill. There’s nothing like a cold beer in the evening sunshine outside a bar with a big line of bikes propped up outside. Do go to the bakery in the morning for coffee and great pastries. Do remember the feeling of getting off the lift with your bike and starting your descent with a view of Mont Blanc in the distance. And do try to find some motivation to ride in the tiny mountains without chairlifts when you get back home.

‘Don’t’, well don’t be tempted to have a beer or three at lunchtime, no matter how tempting the mountainside bars look. Your afternoon riding will not be the same.

You’ll have a blast.

The Red is all open, the World Cup course bits are closed (although some people were riding them at the weekend).

It’s a very pedally ride. No really long climbs or long descents, but most of it is up or down. 24 and a bit miles for the red, the miles in the second half tick past faster than the first (assuming you start at the visitor centre). Great trails, good condition (it was last week anyway) fairly long for a trail-centre red, bring some trail snacks.

I think it flows, but it’s hilly too.

Enjoy.

They’re basically the same design as a Thomson, but the anodizing isn’t as good and the decals/eching comes off (the yellow logo will come off as soon as you take it out of the packaging). I have one on my HT and Thomson on the rest of my bikes, I wouldn’t go nuke-proof again just to save £20. Nothing seriously wrong with them, just a bit of creaking that I’ve never had with Thomson and not the same quality.

If budget is a big issue, then certainly worth considering.

Andy, I’m going the same week (6 – 13 Aug) with my wife and a couple of mates. We went the same week last year and had an awesome time. I’ll look forward to having a post-ride beer with you.

I’m taking my DH bike, because I don’t get to throw it on chairlifts nearly often enough. Last year people rode everything from Ti hardtails to DH bikes, all good.

DH tubes and dual-ply tyres are a great idea, you want to spend your time riding, not changing tubes.

My wife bought me a bottle of Port Ellen 30 Yr old and a 30 yr old bottle of Brora for Christmas. Both closed distilleries and very, very nice whiskies. We came out of the shop £500 lighter between the two bottles.

Open ’em, drink ’em with friends and enjoy them. It’s what whisky is for.

I have no idea why Avid have to have this complicated method of bleeding brakes (sorry, I know this isn’t going to help you much) but bleeding Hope or especially Shimano is just so much easier.

Just what is all that malarkey with the syringes all about?

SLX, open the bleed nipple, fluid in the reservoir, air and fluid out of the caliper. Job done, absolutely no messing around. Go ride.

We haven’t set anything in stone yet, apart from we’re picking a motorhome up in LA and have a couple of weeks to explore and, most importantly, ride.

We were talking about heading to the south Sierras and then down towards Palm Springs, but we’ve just booked flights and an RV and need to make the rest of the plan up according to where the best riding is.

Any info very much appreciated.

By ‘Docked’ I assume that you mean her tail has been cut off.

Please can you explain why this dog has been ‘docked’ when this practice is clearly illegal, unless carried for medical reasons.

Disfiguring a harmless animal for the sake of ‘fashion’ for a particular breed is utter cruelty.

You wouldn’t consider chopping a child’s finger off just because you thought it looked better with only three.

Barbaric! Stupid! Pointless!

You’d better know what you’re messing with if you’re getting into the A’Bunadh. It’s serious stuff (and good too) but it’s not a malt to start the night.

Personally speaking, £40 well spent on single malt will get you…

Bruichladdich 15 – for a seriously classy bottle of well made whisky.
Talisker Distillers Edition – Just over £40, don’t be afraid, not the Talisker you might expect. Fantastic, classic, drinkable, perfect?
Springbank 10 (with £10+ change) – Awesome whisky, just lovely, from the only distillery still malting its own barley. Please don’t make it popular, you might just spoil it.
Bunnahabhain 12, everyone likes it, they just don’t know it yet. Friendly, not around for long once it’s open.
Longrow 10 for an interesting change. Superb quality with a little peat.

Ardbeg, arguably still not back to its best after a few changes of ownership, but still trading on its reputation.

Magura Royal Blood works well and mixes fine with the Shimano stuff they’re originally filled with.

SLX brakes, just have to be the easiest brakes to bleed. Top it up, open the valve, tap and wiggle a bit to get the air out, gravity does it all. Job done. One day all brakes will be bled like that. Avid, take note.

As I understand it a ‘collection’ refers to something that has more value as a collection than the individual pieces. So maybe if you have a five pence piece collection, from every year from 1980 to 2010 it would be worth more than just the 5P’s added up.

Crap example, you know what I mean though right?

You’ll have to forgive me for this but; if you and your other half mis-understand each other to that extent then you’ve got to question your relationship, and not just that she thinks she can, and you’re prepared to let her, tell you what to do!

Surely two people who are going to share their lives together have to be the same kind of people? Like be into the same stuff, you know, people who can enjoy themselves together, doing what they really love, together, as a couple of mates, as well as partners.

My (shortly to be) wife and I met on a mountian biking holiday. We ride together all the time, we’ve been on holiday to Morocco, The Sierra Nevada, The Alps, all over the place, riding together. We’ve got a dozen or so, XC, DH, road, pub, messing about, bikes between us.

Honestly, do you even speak the same language?

Why would you settle for second best? You only get one life. Do it right or not at all.

Albino, I don’t know what the rest of your security is like, but I wouldn’t be leaving a pair of bolt croppers hanging on the wall where I keep my bikes.

Same goes for drills, hacksaws, chisels etc. Keep them somewhere else.

Don’t give the scrotes the tools they need to steal your stuff.

Top tip – Have a brilliant time, you’ll absolutely love it!

Run reasonable tyre pressures, it’s pretty rocky in places, lots of pich-punctures otherwise. Hydrate lots (as with anywhere warm) and enjoy.

Friendly locals, stunning scenery and a whole different culture, just a 3hr plane ride away.

I met my (soon to be) wife mountain biking in the Atlas mountains, I can’t promise it’ll change your life like it did mine, but it’s an awesome place to go and ride your bike.

Are you going on an organised trip? If so, who with? We’re thinking about going back next year.

If you have a 2010 Five it will have a conventional 1 1/8″ head tube. You can get a headset with an oversized bottom bearing to fit a tapered steerer but it will look like a dog’s dinner and add a considerable amount to your stack height.

Best avoided.

Erm… Remove some/all of your clothes, take a picture of yourself, post it on the internet, on a cycling forum.

Remind me again, which bit of this makes sense?

Is this real? What’s wrong with you people?

DON’T buy a Samsung PVR, just don’t. Probably the worst piece of technology available. They must have tried really, really hard to make them quite so bad.

Humax all the way.

If you look inside the box there's usually a sticker telling you that it's normal to find some brake fluid on the inside of the plastic bag and you shouldn't worry about it. Mine had, it didn't cause a problem and hadn't contaminate the pads.

It's not a problem, we're talking a few drops rather than swimming in fluid.

The caps on all my Tech levers look like that, the ones that came on my GF's Five had the flag. I think they still work the same though 😉

The chairlift its self doesn't need to make money. Do you think the trails at an average trail centre make any money? Take the trails at Innerliethen, do you think the total investment in the trails there is repaid by the parking fees? Clearly not.

The business model for these things is about a much wider return than the asset its self, think about families / couples etc heading there, even if just one of them rides, the rest of them are drinking in pubs, eating in cafes and staying in B&Bs and other accommodation. It's about bringing business into the area generally and injecting cash into the local economy.

Take Afan and Cwmcarn for example, those places weren't chosen as trail centres because they are nice places to go to, because if the trails weren't there not many of us would choose them as destinations. They're selected, in part, because the facility will bring in visitors, who will spend money in the local economy. The trails themselves don't make the money, that's not the point.

Oh, and the trails at trail centres have counters built into them, the FC know pretty accurately how many riders are using them and when.

mollyiom what makes you really think that DH riders don't go out and ride 40 miles of XC one day and then ride DH the next and then ride 50 miles of road the next day. I do.

Can I suggest you keep your bigoted opinions to yourself.

Or go out and try it and meet some of the riders and realise they're just mountian bikers like the rest of us, assuming you have the skills of course.

A chairlift would be a great idea. Maybe the lift its self wouldn't make money, but the overall net revenue for the area may well make it viable. It's not just full-on DH riders that would use it.

Going out to Trail Addiction on Saturday with my other half, looking forward to it in a big way.

DH bikes all the way. You can have skills or suspension, I know which I've got.

Can't wait!

Kayaking is a brilliant sport. It has taken me to some of the most amazing places in the world and given me the most incredible experiences, both on and off the water. I've also met some really true friends for life through kayaking.

As others have said it compliments mountain biking very well, I often go away with boats and bikes and if the weather doesn't suit one sport it generally does the other.

The very, very best advice you will get is to get yourself down to your local club. They will be super pleased to help you get started and will have kit you can use until you decide what's best for you. The kit can be very discipline specific and you don't know which way you'll want to go until you've tried them (whether it's touring, white water, polo, sea, surf, freestyle, marathon, open, C1, tandem, the list goes on).

Please, please don't just go out, get some kit and try it unsupervised. The water can be a very dangerous place, and you really can't spot the hazards unless you know what they are.

UKRGB (www.ukriversguidebook.co.uk/forum) can be helpful, kind of in the same way people on here will be helpful if someone posted 'I'm new to mountain biking, give me some advice', so don't rely on everything you're told on there.

You could do a lot worse than getting yourself to Plas Y Brenin http://www.pyb.co.uk or Plas Menai http://www.plasmenai.co.uk and get on a weekend course, it really is money well spent getting yourself set off in the right direction. With canoeing/kayaking you really will get more out of the sport if you have the right basic skills, and you learn the right techniques from the start.

I'd also say it's pretty cheap too compared to Mountain biking. You could walk into a kayak shop and get all the latest, very top of the line kit, boat and paddles for less than two grand, you certainly couldn't do that in MTB. Not that you have to spend that much, it really can be pretty cheap to get into.

Most of all enjoy! You won't look back.

Boxxers are 20mm axles, and the new axle works really nicely.

I'm running a 150mm Hope on my DH bike and it has been faultless (so far).

If you can leave the insoles in the sun then the UV light will kill the bacteria.

Or you could treat them to an hour on the sunbed, go on, you could curl up next to them.

Camelbak, 5-10 Impacts, pressure suit, elbow and knee pads, all come out of the washing machine like new.

The dishwasher does a pretty good job on the rear cassette too.

Don't go buying them, seriously, you'll all look like me, my wardrobe is pretty much all Spokeshirts, or it's rapidly getting that way.

Great quality shirts, great designs, great service, even a great weekly e-mail! Keep up the great work.

'Pub' is inspired! That's me that is (although I don't know whose bike I'm sitting on). Okay, maybe it's not me, but it could be!

I got to the end of this thread and someone had just said what I was thinking.

Buy a Carerra, then just like a Skoda driver, you'll ride around trying to justify how your bike is just as good as all of the decent brands, and you'll go on and on so much about it that you might even end up believing it yourself.

But most probably somewhere in the back of your mind you'll wonder what you could have been riding if you'd got an extra paper-round, saved up for a few more months and bought something else. And you'll think that every time you go in the shed and look at it, when really what you deserve to be thinking is 'that's MY bike that is, and I can't wait to get out and ride it'.

Be honest, if you really thought there was nothing wrong with it then you wouldn't think you had to justify buying it, the question wouldn't even enter your head.

Blackburn Mammoth. The best MTB mini-pump bar none. Super-reliable, lifetime guarantee.

No more pumping like a lunatic for half an hour with a tiny roadie-sized pump. You want volume not pressure with your MTB mini-pump.

If you like not knowing where the hell your bike will go next then Mountain Kings are great! Sketchy, vague, minimal cornering grip, all present and correct.

If you actually want some grip and control then look elsewhere. Nevegals and High Rollers are the ones, why would you want any other tyres?

In the bag, should work well with one either side of the frame. You really don't want to get there without the full compliment of wheels! Or get stung for additional pieces of luggage.

The maxle axle its self will cost a chunk of the upgrade, then there's the cost of machining the rear end. Makes sense that there would be an upgrade price.

If not I'd guess some people would only moan that the QR version wasn't cheaper. This way you can spec the bike how you want it and only pay for what you want.

The maxle rear ends really do make sense, QRs seem like something out of the Ark after you've used a maxle.

Don't tell people on here, all you'll get is grief.

Well done by the way.

Spank do a stem with 30mm stack, well I have one in my shed anyway.

Cool, I'll have to check out the dimensions and see if it's bigger than my Tifosi bag, it would be great to get the bike in without taking the bars off. Maybe a new bike bag is on the shopping list.

I know the picture of the bag shows a frame in there with the bars left on, but I've never been able to get my bike in one with the bars on. My bikes are large size though mostly.

I find wheel bags super useful for transporting the bike in the car though, keeps the muck & scratching down and can be used to pad the frame out in the car.

I use Thule 591 roof carriers most of the time and really rate them, 100% secure, just a bit of a dent in the fuel consumption, and it's not fun when you have to stop at motorway services etc as I'm always concerned about the thieving mutants.

Of course over-heated rotors that could mean that you're dragging your brakes, going way too slowly and on the whole mincing your sorry-ass way down the hill 😉