I’ve had 2 SLX 10x shifters (not sure of model) fail due to an internal bolt coming loose. Both developed play in the lever after a few months of use and one spat it’s internals out while out on the trail. Bought an XT and it’s been solid so far so I’d say go for the XT.

I’m glad I’ve only got three jobs on today this should be interesting.

My bets are the OP reads the daily Mail pays road tax and has used the term should be riding in ‘single file’

I’d be interested to see what OP you actually read, cos the one I read was pretty reasonable – 0/10 for ranting :D

I wouldn’t say they were definitely being d*cks by not letting him pass given the reasons others have provided (might have just pulled over to let others pass, etc), but in their situation (either on a bike or in a car) I’d have pulled over to let him pass. The stopping in the middle of the road because they missed a junction is pretty d*ckish though.

Didn’t have the charger in stock (website lied) so got the Airshot – tyre went up a treat!

Thanks all, that’s good to know about the flash charger, top the commuters up weekly so would be a bit annoying to have to keep the old one around for that.

Saw the Triton deal but they estimate shipping as end of April which isn’t much use to me. Leisure Lakes have both the charger and the Airshot in stock apparently so might toddle over this avo and have a play with them.

Doing the same myself in April, had planned on doing the Marin and Coed-y-Brenin, but might sack off Marin and do Cadair Idris based on this!

That sounds way too much – I did some rough calculations and my maintenance/replacement costs are about £40 a month, though I do it all myself. That includes things that didn’t really need done like shock/fork services when there was nowt wrong with them, new tyres, new headset. Also includes 2 new mechs and a wheel rebuild as I seem to be good at breaking stuff, and 4 drivechain replacements over 2 years (Peak District grit and an aversion to cleaning).

Haven’t had the same issue but I can’t access the website for Hotmail using Chrome – says it’s sending back unusual and incorrect credentials. Suggests there might be a wider issue with Hotmail if a lot of us are having problems.

FWIW my work outlook.com site is working fine.

I’ve replaced two busted rims myself and neither of them has exploded or gone wonky during a ride, so if I can manage it I’m sure you’ll be fine!

You will be paranoid it’ll unravel the first time you ride on it though :lol:

Would it be possible to go data mining on Strava to help with this? If you could get user names for people who ride it when conditions are poor you could maybe message them to take part in a survey to understand why they’re riding it and what you could do to encourage them to use alternatives.

Not sure if that’s even possible with Strava and it definitely won’t capture the whole user group, but it would be a start and could maybe be followed up with someone taking a survey at the trail head (not volunteering btw :D ).

Edit – could maybe get some undergrads to do the survey as part of their thesis. We seem to get quite a few on here asking for input into surveys so there might be a way to make it worthwhile for them as well.

Might it be worth trialling a “We recommend you don’t ride Cut Gate this weekend” post on KoftP when it looks like it’ll be bad (based on recent local weather and experience)? If no-ones posted up conditions during the week and you’re planning on riding on the Saturday it’s kind of a guessing game if you’re not in the area to know what the weather has been like.

Don’t know how likely it is that the ones who ride it in poor conditions will check KoftP, or if would even make them avoid it, but couldn’t hurt to try?

My girlfriend liked Val Thorens, though she went as a complete noob. Deux Alpes was good according to her but Tignes had too many flat bits. Best we’ve been to so far for her level has been Zell am See – we got loads of powder last year so I had a great time blasting through the trees in the off piste while she cruised around, but the park wasn’t up to much so I might have got a bit bored if there hadn’t been the powder. Going back this year so will probably find out then!

I suspect so, I had a SRAM gxp crankset on before this and got 3 or 4 chains/cassettes out of it before the granny ring was looking a bit sharky. In comparison, I’ve had to change the granny ring every time I put a new chain on with the XT. Which isn’t too bad as they’re ~£10, but the big XT ring is ~£45 while the Deore is ~£20!

Ta

21 in 7.5 km in Manchester. Didn’t think it was that bad till I counted them all up!

Thanks all, might try that as the rear is pretty worn but the front looks ok. Though the DHF is 3c so will probably go in a few weeks at the rear :lol:

Plus1 for most of what’s been said up there, particularly

Be careful, try to avoid confrontation with peds and motorists as this will mess up your mood all day

IME even trying to be reasonable with them when they’ve been an idiot isn’t worth it as most of them can’t see what they’ve done wrong and it’ll just degenerate into an argument, which leaves me beating myself up about it all day. Not worth it!

Also, you may have a defined route to your work that you have to take, but if there are multiple options cyclestreets.net can be useful for finding the quietest one. Makes a big difference to me when I use the option it suggests, roads are much quieter and I’m not having to filter past traffic for 50% of it. Added about 30% onto my commute in terms of time and distance, but it’s much less stressful!

I’m expecting a parcel, had a notification saying it’s been delivered but it ain’t here!

Ah, thanks! Missed that thread…

this all sounds made up, like a very unconvincing Hollyoaks storyline to me

Audience testing, innit? The producers have heard we all buy Maseratis and Audis and want to target this lucrative market so have posted this storyline up to see if we’d be interested. TBH if I was writing a soap to try and lure in middle-aged Audi-driving IT consultants I’d probably go with underage schoolgirl sex too…

I suspect there are just as many **** as there always were as a proportion, but we have more interactions on a daily basis as the population is higher. I also think that every generation begins to think the world is going to the dogs as they get older and harks back to some earlier, mythological golden age.

RE parking like a **** in supermarkets, I worked in Tesco in the 90s and it was just as prevalent then!

A lot of people are far too worried about what they look like

Everyone cares what they look like to some extent. Even those like to say they don’t care what they’re wearing are making a statement in what they are wearing, i.e. “I want you to think I don’t care”.

Usually it’s waterproof baggies if I’m wearing tights so it’s to keep dry. Still wear normal baggies over them if it’s cold and not wet (ha!) as I’d just feel weird bimbling about with my arse and padded bits on display. I can understand how roadies who are used to just lycra (and need it for teh aeroz) would think it’s a bit odd, but it would feel a bit like going into a swimming pool in a budgie smuggler for me!

Certainly wouldn’t class myself as a surfer (I’m rubbish) but getting called out of the water because the guide had spotted what he thought was a shark in the area got the old heart rate up! Thankfully happened in the last day of the trip so I didn’t have to steel myself to go back in!

You spent 10 minutes telling him none of you had a ciggie? Really? 10 minutes, that’s ages, he must of been a professional pest!

Had similar in Amsterdam many moons ago, guy kept asking for cigarettes in English and wouldn’t bugger off despite us pretending to be French (which probably didn’t help him believe we didn’t have any) and unable to understand him. Followed us for about 10 mins getting more and more aggressive, thankfully we got back to the hostel and he couldn’t follow inside. Possibly a similar situation to alpins, just some **** looking for an excuse for a fight.

+1 for what Northwind and Junkyard said – nobody knows how they’re going to react in that situation until it happens, but I’d stake the house on drunk people reacting far more violently than stoned people.

I’m really hoping you’re trolling Three fish as you’re coming across as a numpty just now. And I’ve no idea what you’re on about with the nose thing either.

You did good, well done for stepping in when others wouldn’t!

FWIW your reaction afterwards sounds pretty much the same as I have in situations like that – overanalyze, overthink, come up with some ‘perfect’ way of having handled it, and then beat yourself up because you didn’t do that!

Piers Morgan not taking any shit, Suzanna Reid biting tongue and Fat Bristow demonstrating that he is indeed a prize bellend.

Just read the comments under the video – Jesus there are a lot of idiots out there! 8O

Just thought I’d resurrect this as I’m up that way this weekend – any point going up Glentress or is it still frozen solid?

Yeah, 99% of the time I assume drivers will do the most stupid thing possible and ride accordingly, but I probably let my guard down as it was the junction into the road my house is on. Think I read somewhere that a large proportion of accidents happen in the last part of a journey as drivers get close to home and relax! Might be making that up though…

I may not fully understand the OP’s situation

In the top example below I’d be the green car (bike in my case)and would be indicating right, and the taxi would be the red one, but parked about a foot from the junction up on the pavement

Thanks all – at the time I assumed I should have right of way but I only saw he was indicating a second or two before the turn as he was right up in the pavement. I can see how he might have thought he had priority, thankfully it just ended with me having a bit of a 2 wheel drift and him slamming on the brakes. Should probably have played it safe as I was on the bike and just waited for him to go but hate waiting in the middle of the road at that turn – always feel I’m going to get rear-ended!

It was a taxi driver btw – if I’d realised that at the time I’d have known he’d think he had priority!

Use it in Manchester and never felt ripped off by it – though never used it for such a short journey. If you know someone with an account get them to send you an invite, both of you will then get a £10 credit (least they were doing it a while back) so effectively a free ride if this is the only time you ever use it. You can also get a fare estimate based on pickup and drop-off location before you order, so if it’s too expensive you can use a minicab.

Thanks Jeffl, think I’ll probably give it a go as it’s been a few weeks since I was up there!

Works for me, never had a problem with it using Chrome. Don’t have Trusteer.

Yeah, can’t imagine it would be fun! Might just assess it when I get up Chapel gate and turn around and do Greenlands instead if it’s icy.

I did have a quick look at the DIY ones, but my experience (admittedly from quite a few years back) was that it was a lot more hassle and stress to do DIY and you didn’t generally save that much – I may be wrong though :D . We’re also tied to leaving on a weekend as we already have the week booked off work and it can be a real PITA getting our schedules to sync up!

That’s kind of my thinking! Only issue is that we also have a holiday to Oz to pay for later in the year (1st world problems, I know :oops: ) which won’t be cheap.

Cynical brain says Trek were probably well aware that some idiots would get in a strop about it on FB, thus ensuring it would get wider reporting in the cycling media than it might otherwise have got. Trek then get to score more points as a women-friendly brand – marketing win!

Fiver on ten posts before some muppet with similar views turns up on this thread…

and have multiple instances of every labour saving device known to man it seems that you can’t afford a set of weighing scales!

a set of cups and spoons is probably the most labour saving you can get,fast quick and easy. Not used scales in years

I hate trying to figure out recipes in cups – it’s all well and good until they throw in something with a defined measurement, e.g. 1 tsp of baking soda. Then it matters how big your cup is in proportion to the tsp, so just give me a bloody weight! Far easier to just have a set of digital scales…