Assuming he’s a young driver, to get his premium down to something like £1k, he’ll probably have such a high compulsory excess that it won’t be worth him claiming for the damage to his own.

My son’s insurance is like that. Excess so high that it will be unlikely he’ll want to claim on his own insurance, making it “Fully Comp” in name only but “Third Party” in practical terms.

can’t comment on Mega as never tried one.
I do have two Oranges though. The >32t chainring thing seems to cause a foul for some people but not for others. Some can run a 36t without any issues but both mine foul the swingarm pivot if greater than 32t on the “middle”.
In the worst case, you’d only have to replace your 36t chainring with a 32t, no need to buy a whole new chainset.

Hob Nob’s pic confirms my suspicions. A little too tight for my liking.
26″ rear it will be.

Another recommendation for Bogtrotters here.

They cover a wide area, not just Lakes.
There are plenty of members around Manchester/Chorley/Preston with a regular Wednesday night group riding in that area. Most of the Wed night rides only get organised on the Facebook group at short notice and often never make it onto the website.

Saturday rides are mostly classed as “easy” and suitable for anyone/everyone. The pace is that of the slowest and very laid-back atmosphere.

Sunday rides are usually a bit tougher, either longer distances or more technically challenging (or both).

Ask to join the FB group.

Lake Garda is in the Alps…. :/ personally i find the place a bit over-hyped. spent lots of time down there with work and have had a chance to ride many trails in the area.
my feeling is, is that if you have a big bike with 6-8″ of squish and double ply tyres then you’re laughing. the trails are very rocky. i like technical rocky riding, but 1000m descent of thump-thump-thump gets bit boring and tiring (DB Alpine w/Lyrik). after a few days you begin to get the feeling it is all a bit samey. not that the riding is overly hard, you just never get that “flow-zone” feeling. there are some gems, like up above Pregasina, where there is more flow/speed but they are the exception rather than the norm.
if you’ve not got a big bike and don’t like long rocky descents, you may not like it

As always, I guess it depends what you’re after. I’ve done a couple of weeks in Garda and really really rate the place, mainly for the reasons Alpin finds in “a bit samey”, i.e. those long thump-thump-thump descents that are punishing but great fun on that big bouncy bike with dual plys 😉
To continue with the opposing view, I’d have said the stuff below Pregasina (vecchio Porto Ponale, etc) was much more interesting than the stuff higher up. Bottom sections of the 601 are the same too. Think Sweary Northener Hebden Bridge-esque tech’ that just goes on for milesssss….. 😀

After goulash and schnitzel you’ve exhausted the menu

WHAT!
Tyrolean food is about as good as it gets IMHO. Every kind of animal you could ever wish to consume and not had many meals that have failed to impress.

My only contribution would be to suggest you stay well away from Highstreet unless it’s frozen solid!
Loads of all-weather stuff from Ambleside: Loughrig, Claife, Iron Keld, etc.

1. Garda. A week riding some fantastic trails. Best one would be 601 trail – loved the technical lower sections so much that some of us went back to repeat them the following day in a downpour.
Wet limestone techy trails! 😈
2. Fort William – just looping round and round the DH course, getting progressively faster and maybe a bit braver. Made a weekend of it and did Devil’s Staircase and Cairan Path which are both also v good.
3. Four Passes (Tour of Gable) – highlights would be the descents from Honister and Sty Head
4. Blencathra and Skiddaw – some good oldfahioned hike-a-bike.
5. hmm, have to think now, maybe Snowdon.

You’ve moved to the right place!

Hebden is many different things to different people when it comes to MTB.
Some prefer the moor-top singletrack and others the valley side tech-fests. Plenty for both.
The map is your best starting point. Just about every footpath around Hebden is worth an explore.

My son went with mates last year. Sounded like they had a good time and the line-up was pretty good.

I’ve skied Mayrhofen quite a few times and quite like the place. Not massive but enough variety to suite all abilities. Not high either so can suffer late season. The main problem with the resort is that it attracts a lot of Brits… which is not a good thing! Must be even worse when Snowbombing is on.

Where are the CRC vouchers when you need ’em?

I’d buy a set if I didn’t already have 66RC3ti on one bike and 44RC3ti on another!

Oh, and the 3 year warranty is brilliant.
Having royally abused my 44RC3ti for 2 years and 11.5 months, I sent it back to Windwave under warranty and got it back yesterdy, fully serviced with new seals and wipers etc, plus the damping cartridge replaced (which is what I’d requested they investigate).
No quibble, no suggestion of “just wear & tear”, no charge. Hats off to Windwave.

‘Qualifier’ I have to qualify? Is that for a grid position.

Yes, and more importantly, for if you do or don’t make a mass start final.
In either case you will ride the course, but if you don’t finish within the top “n” of your quali’ then you just do the course timed but not mass start.

How come there is such a contrast, sometimes its a complete white out at the start, other times its dry and sunny?

It’s a 3000m+ peak with a glacier. That’s Alpine weather for you.

Maybe I’m just getting a bit too sensible in my old age, but I’m not keen to do remote/big mountain hike-a-bike tech stuff alone.
I appreciate having someone along who a.)can give a grid reference reliably, and b.)would be capable/willing to stick his knee in your groin if you “did a Cedric”.

Did it in 2012 and doing it again in 2014. 😀

Capability wise, you’d be fine on a long travel h/t but it will be punishing on the body!
I took my Five with a 140mm fork last time and that was capable enough.

Most of my recent CRC tyre deliveries have been “big black bag – unfolded”.

I fancied venison but have had to settle for (cow) steak as no-one else was up for eating Rudolf.

I like ’em. Got em on all 3 bikes.
The real plus point is that they do protect the stanchions too.
The minor negatives are that they intrude on clearance (I’ve noticed this most when riding in sticky snow) and they can get bent out of shape easily when multiple bikes are stacked in the boot with their front wheels removed.

The stuff you said you ride; Darwen Moor, Rivi, Gisburn, is best ridden on a hardtail IMHO. There’s little to be gained from more bounce on that stuff.
(I have two f/s bikes and one h/t. 75% of the time I’d take the h/t out for those locations and leave the f/s at home)

Northwind is correct IMHO.
They are soft but quite tough for their weigh.

I’m clumbsy, 14st and not that slow downhill.
I’ve got crests tubeless on my 100mm XC hardtail and occasionally forget that I’m riding the lightweight bike. It gets hammered down bouldery stuff like Garburn & ICR and is quite happy dropping multiple 3ft flights of steps top to bottom.
No I can’t claim that they’ve stayed true but they’ve not failed either and have always been easy enough to re-true now and then.
When I eventually kill them, I’ll go up to Arch EX.

If the hardest thing they’ll have to contend with is trail centres though, Crests will be fine.

It depends what sort of stuff you’re riding…
I’ve found most USTs to be a bit flimsy and sidewalls to get trashed in no time at all on the back.

I’ve three bikes running tubeless. None with UST tyres.
1. XC hardtail has a mud-X Tubeless ready on the back and a single ply Minion on the front. (SP seem as durable as UST)
2. General purpose full sus has a dual ply Minion on the rear and a single ply Minion on the front
3. Patriot has dual plys both ends.

All with stans fluid. No fuss at all.
All fine.

twiglets are the work of the devil…. arrrrggghhh!

S&V for me, every time.
Seabrooks if poss.

… and is it me or are S&V getting milder these days. Can’t seem to find any with a real vinegary sharpness to ’em 🙁

Damn, so he won’t be bringing me a new bike, even if I’m a very good boy.

More than one fattie out then I guess.

Was going to come and join you lot but met up purely coincidentally with a riding buddy on Stubbin’ carpark so we wandered off to do some cheekier stuff… and then bumped into the Sweary Northeners.

Sounds like everyone was out around Hebden.

We spotted a group including at least one fatbike on the road through Slack on Sunday afternoon, maybe 2-ish.
Was that you lot then?

Daughter’s school concert beckons, sorry.
I might still need the hipflask though.

cheese +1

Northwind, that’d be this one then:
http://www.orangebikes.co.uk/news/view/cane_creek_double_barrel/%5B/url%5D

Liteville are also big advocates of this:
http://www.bikerumor.com/2012/09/13/2013-liteville-mountain-bikes-updates-frames-w-scaled-sizing-mix-n-match-wheel-combos/%5B/url%5D

XL on order will come with a 26″ rear and 650B front.

what tomaso said +1

Young and foolish yes.
I don’t see why all the sanctimonious-track-world response though.

Looks to be enough in Italy:

http://www.kronplatz.com/en/live/webcam/%5B/url%5D

I’ve got a very similar setup on my Five.
2011 frame with a CCDB coil. Flow EXs with Dual ply tubeless Minions, Marzocchi 44RC3ti, wide bars, short stem.
Downhill, it’s as good as you’d expect from that spec. An absolute flying machine.
The CCDB does take a lot of setting up and I found the baseline setting for the Five to way-understimate the HS rebound damping needed.
I got buckeroo-ed over the bars on the first fast downhill I rode whilst setting it up 🙁 ; on the second run I was getting somewhere near right; by the third I was getting much quicker times than I’d done before on an RP23.

Strangely, I also found that the Five climbs a lot better on the CCDB too, as it no longer wallows into it’s travel as you climb over sqare edged stuff.
Thoroughly recommended.

Brother-in-law used to work for a coach company that used a fleet of V70s for airport shuttles.
They were the D5s I think but they did some intergalactic milage without any adverse effects. At one point, I was considering buying one of theirs with 290,000 on the clock.

Gotta include Kebab Street 😀 & maybe Chipps’

^^^ better? 😉

I love a good objective thread like this. Here we go…

1. Beast (AKA Fluffy Kitten) is a bit better than Potato Alley
2. The cheeky off-piste between the two is better than either.

3. and if you’ve invested all that altitude in clibing up to Hope Cross, then why not do the job properly and go down (best of the lot) [EDIT] that one that Hora got flamed for mentioning 😆 [/EDIT]

Megavalanche

Nothing else planned but open to suggestions.

yep.
5 litre garden sprayer here. Very effective.
Simply cut off the nozzle and replace it with the valve connector from your trackpump. Kinking the outlet hose over and securing it with a clip has been fine to allow sufficient volume and pressure to be built up.
Undo the clip, unkink the hose, and the tyre seats immediately. 😀

Some of our crew will be riding in the vicinity of Hebbers on Saturday morning. Probably starting a lot earlier, 9ish maybe and likely ending at “Stubborn Dwarf” sometime in the afternoon.

Might still be around to join you post-ride Tony.

Strip and grease anyway. Some nice thick marine grease will help keep the crap out too.
But don’t get too carried away with the notion that they should spin freely in a no-load situation. That’s not representative of use at all.
You want them to turn freely with a fat middle-aged mountainbiker stomping on them. That’s a whole different measurement.
Good example is the fabulously expensive Syntace pedals : syntace-numbernine-titan-pedals which won’t spin in your hand at all.