I used to pull my CTS CX2 behind my Patriot, I found I went through pivot bearings like they were going out of fassion and it also bent the axle in the Hope bulb hub. So now I only tow with my HT.

Its a great trailer and I would reccomend the investment to anyone.

Spoon monkey is popular here at work at the moment, though I much prefer idiot or fool.

Another vote for the double here. I have managed to squeeze it up and down quite a few narrow trails and it is great as a buggy for my three and one year old's. The only issue I have with it, is it is too wide for a couple of the gates on one of my local loops (oh and I managed to roll it when my eldest was seven months old)

Yeah, you would get in everyone elses way on your tandem, especially as it is now going to be busy with the STW faithful. I havnt told a sould just how bad it really is 😉

Head
Cheek Bone – 2
Jaw – 3
Nose – 24
Skull – 2
Zygomatic arch – 1
Shoulder & Chest
Collar bone – 30
Rib – 98
Upper Limb
Arm – 14
Wrist – 26
Finger – 58
Elbow – 4
Thumb – 9
Hand (inc. schaphoid) – 18
Lower Limb
Ankle – 13
Big Toe – 4
Hip – 4
Knee Cap – 2
Leg – 7
Metatarsal – 4
Middle toe – 3
Spine & Pelvis
Back – 4
Pelvis – 2
Spine 5

Added 1 x back, 4 x ribs, 2 x collarbone (the back ribs and one collar bone were all part of the same motorbike crash), nose about 4 (boxing at school x 3 and one by my eldest head butting me) and finally 2 x ankles – both jumping off the school roof

Black duck tape on my red bike, silver duck tape on my silver bike, works a treat.

A lot of the argument about the added safety of wearing a helmet seems to miss the point. Yes a helmet wont necessarily save you if hit by a car, as a head injury may not be the most serious injury inflicted.
One of my wifes running friends was hit by a dump truck turning into a building site. She suffered a crushed pelvis, two broken legs, almost had her right arm amputated. However none of these were life threatening – they could have been, but weren't.
If she had not been wearing a helmet she would have died, her head was almost pulled under the rear wheels of the truck. The paramedic who saw to her at the scene and doctor who operated on her both said, considering the damage to her helmet she would have died if her head had been subjected to the forces the helmet took. Oh and she is almost back to full health, still cycling, stil running and definitely wearing a helmet.
Of course there will be many cases where wearing a helmet wont be a factor in reducing an injury or helping evade death, however their effect on helping reduce head injury and death through head impact can not be ignored, no matter how one choses to interpret the statistics.

I have an Apex 20, it is clipped to the shoulder strap with a karabiner and then there is a double Velcro strap on the back that goes over the chest strap. I have had a few big off's and it has stayed on fine and the camera has been nicely protected. And it has a water proof cover.

I have a chariot CX2 and it is great, we can squeeze a one year old and three and a half year old (he is in four to five clothes – as he is lanky like me)and they both manage fine, there is an external storage compartment for all the extra stuff that is inevitably needed on a day out, the suspension cen be set to take into account the uneven weight load and I like to think the added weight of both kids is doing me good as I huff and puff up hill.

Oh and yes I think they are worth the money, especially as they hold their value.

Mine are

The red one
The silver one

Or the broken one – which can be interchangable

I used to ski, then dislocated my knee and tore out a chunk of cartilage along with rupturing one cruciate and severing the other. There is no way my knee can take the forces from ski'ing (I know I tried and tried). Snowboarding on the other hand places hardly any of the stresses on my knees that ski'ing did, as it is mostly front to back stress, whereas ski'ing is mostly sideways. As for lessening the load on one knee whilst on the board – well – you need to have your weight centered. To my mind that means both legs have an equal load.

Oh and after the initial pain of learning to board I wished I had started boarding long before the knee dislocation (it wasnt done ski'ing by the way)

An old railway carridge part way up the hill above Helensburgh. The train line is a couple of miles down the hill and there is no sign of tracks anywhere around (I suspect a farmer having a joke….)

I have just finished Judas Unchained by Peter F Hamilton, rather long but difficult to put down. On the Origin of Species, by some old dude (a 1930's re-print I found in a second hand book shop), also the greatest show on earth by Richard Dawkins and just to keep me confused at bedtime I am re-reading the Farthest North by Fridtjof Nansen. Which is a bit difficult to get into but once going is a bloomin good read and makes one realise how ballsy late 19th century explorers were.

Silly examples can be dragged out by both pro and anti speeders. Something worth bearing in mind about speed is that in an urban area the 30 and 20 mph limits are there for very good reasons.

If you hit a pedestrian at 30 mph they have a 90% chance of surviving, if the speed is 40 mph they have a 10% chance of surviving.

As a 15 year old me and a mate made some ANFO (fertiliser and diesel) explosive, stole half a dozen car batteries and various other bits to make it go bang. Used it to blow up the green house of a miserable old git up the road who took exception to our playing of football and various other games in the street. Seems quadrupling the amounts used in our initial experiments wasnt very wise, as we not only destroyed the green house, but blew in all the windows on the back of his house along with half of the next door neighbours windows. I think we were lucky not to kill anyone.
Not learning from the bo11ocking from the police (an over night in the cells plus full days questioning) and both sets of parents, we went on to putting camping gaz canisters into bales of hay on a mates farm and then set the bales alight. Managed to put one lad in hospital with second degree burns over almost half his body.
The list of what would now be considered rather serious delinquent behaviour went on for some time, untill a couple of us discovered rock climbing which seemed to channel all the teenage horrid little sh1t delinquent behaviour into the scaring ourselves silly climbing.

Managed a run around Arrochar / Inveruglass on christmas eve, only problems were low down where there was a thin dusting of snow on ice – sideways action going up hill. Am still attempting to dig my way out of the toy avalanche from christmas day – that and acting as mediator on the fights over playing with each others toys. Have a day pass for tomorrow was wondering over the snowboard at Glencoe or bike. Hmmm slippery slidey no matter what the decision.

If doing the Glen loin loop, start at Tarbet train station, adds a few extra miles and a couple of short steep lung busting climbs, all well worth the effort. And if you are still feeling up for it head up the cruach tarbet, though this does require a wee bit of pushing/carrying. Also if you are in a carrying mood how about tackling the Cobbler or Ben Ime, both of which are great decents.

I work offshore, so am stuck on a turbo trainer for half of the year. I have a few routines that i use. The main one that seems to do some good is an interval routine that you push yourself to 90-95% of max effort. I start with 10 minutes warm up, steadily increasing resistance then put in 7 minutes at 90% effort, followed by 2 minutes rest/easy pace, then 5 minutes at 90%, 2 minutes rest, 3 minutes at 90% and 2 minutes easy. I then do 2 minutes at as close to 100% effort as possible, aiming to have to reduce resistance over the last thirty seconds. Finish off with either 5 or 10 minutes warm down. I do this three times a week and on the seventh day do a work out with five two minute sections at 100% with five minute rests in-between.
This seems to keep some semblance of fitness. I will also try and do two hour and a half spins at 70 or 80% – that is if I can withstand the boredom and sore arse.

I made the front page of the P&J and Scottish Daily Mail on the same day, was also apparently mentioned on BBC breakfast TV (was a very slow news day)

Was forcibly ejected from the castle of May highland games (where I was on the entrance) for trying to charge Charlie boy an entrance fee – he was overseeing the track and field events, though I think saying his horse could get in for free was the main reason his polis officers took umbrage at me! Maybe that was part of the reason for my now ex-wife leaving…….

Oh and seriously embarrassed my step daughter in front of Ian Anderson (of Jethro Tull fame) when he presented her with a prize at an Inverness music festival.

Most recent favourite has to be Ben Ime down to loch Long, in places it is sublime in others down right knee deep mud….. 3300 feet of decent is hard to beat.

After that there is a two minute section of mud, roots and rocks I have been slowly muscling down through a section of forestry above the town (shh, dont tell the local estate, the previous attempt was dug up by the estate foresters)

Sounds like you are just about convinced.

Go for it I say.

I have one on the hard tail, which gets little in the way of attention, the only thing I did on fitting it was to proof the underside, the topside gets a coat of proofing once a year at the most. It is the most comfortable saddle I have ever used, it gave the impression of being as hard as a block of wood on taking out of the box – which initially made me thing I had made a mistake – on the contrary it was the best impulse buy I have made on the bike.

I was on the Jack bates semi submersible drill rig off Shetland during some rough weather in 97 or 98, we were all confined to the accommodation for two days. Windows on the forward side of the accommodation that had storm shutters dogged closed were blown in and half the handrails around the drill floor ripped out by a wave. The rig floor was 90 feet above the sea…… Large containers on the deck were toppled over and moved around like toys. I spent the whole time bricking myself as the rig was heaving about 30 to 40 feet. It took about a week to get everything sorted out and back to work.

5am starts for me at the mo, finish feeding the wee fella, on with the bike kit and up into the hills at the back of town, back home to the dawn chorus and breakfast. Great fun 🙂

It probably ate its mum

Coz he is married to her…….I think?

Trout, I have been diligently avoiding thinking of purchasing one of your sweet looking lights. Now there you go giving me the perfect excuse…….In my final attempt at not buying more bike stuff, would it be able to use the Hope vision battery?

Mr Trout, you are putting together some blindingly (no pun intended) good looking bits of kit. I couldn't help noticing the Hope Vision stem you have on one of the pics in the other thread. Now as an owner of a 10 watt HID and P7 torch – which puts the HID to shame I got to wondering about the possibilities of having the light adjusterated to fit some LED's as I am a big fan of the stem mount for light and battery.
Firstly do you think it is possible and secondly do you have any spare time in your construction schedule………Pretty please 🙂

Patch it up, I tore a hole in my rear Maxis Advantage, used a temporary patch for the day then put a larger patch over the top when home, its been fine for months.

14 here, though if dont include the -1 for carrying a GPS, coz it is kept inside my bag to show how gnar fast I was on the totally gnar descent then I could attain a gnar 15…….

Wait until you have Thomas the tank and lazy town theme tunes doing the rounds in your head on those long grinding climbs. Then screaming AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH is appropriate

An ageing Bell X-Ray for XC, that will soon be replaced
A Casco Viper for days when the up involves lots of cycling and the down warrants a full face
A Gyro full face jobbie for downhill days

I would love to give it a go, though it is 25 years since I last rode a BMX, and as ever with all these fun sort of things I am offshore. Do you only use the track during the summer? I would love to try and get back into BMX. Do you have an over 40 bimblers class

I worked with Sustrans in the eighties in Liverpool and one of their aims was to make it possible to travel almost anywhere in the county by bike without having to rely on the road network. They were also attempting to link all major population centres via a network of off road routs that would allow anyone with a bike to safely travel by bike. Their aim was not necessarily to help the daily commuter get to work, though I would imagine that has been taken into consideration since my time with them. Also Sustrans is a charity and has to make do with what it can get, from my perspective looking at things as they were in the mid eighties and the hurdles faced, they have done an amazing job.

DickBarton, I have been slowly comming to the conclusion that I would have to go the route of cobbling something together along those lines

Slight hijack, does anyone know of a rack that can be attached onto the top of a trailer (my abysmal reversing bent a couple of wheels on bikes hung from a rear wheel bike rack)

We have two boys, 2 1/2 and 5 months, I work away from home 6 months of the year, so time with family is precious. I grab what ever time on the bike or off kayaking that I can, most week-day rides either happen in the early morning (5am ish) or once the boys are in bed (7:30pm), so in the winter the lights are in constant use. As for paddling, rare club trips or the odd solo run on rivers I know well seem to be the norm over the past few years.

I get paid in USD, so the closer to parity the two get the better for me, a 25% change in the exchange rate can really **** yer up. Though luckily at the start of the year it was in my favour, it seems to be slowly going in the opposite direction at the moment and looks to be following the trend in the oil price, which conversely works in my favour. As that is what brings the $$$ in.

Yeah but more than worth the price. My two and half year old has been zooming about on his scoot balance bike good and proper for the last four or five months. He wants to go everywhere on it, wont take off his bike helmet and wants a bike like Daddies…… I am already planning which bike to get him next, its one way of circumventing my wife and her complaints about my spending on bikes and bits.

I did wonder about the anodising process and dissmissed it almost immediately.

He knows me too well and better not charge too much, or he will be doing without his digestives…….

I think the Patriot is a bloomin brill bike. Yes its a wee bit on the heafty side and can be slower than some shorter travel bikes as well as being a complete dog to grind up-hill (sometimes)

Mine is used for 20 odd mile trips towing a trailer with two kids and all the stuff they need to a full weekend at fort William doing the 4x, red and world cup tracks. It has been dragged to the top of Ben Nevis and hurtled down again, I have managed all day epics in the backwoods of BC and Alberta, to a quick spin round my home loop once the boys are in bed.

I love it and wont be parting with it (that is untill the new version is out)