Mine has got a 27.2mm seatpost

I've always liked Shimano XTR cables. Trying out some Gore ride-ons at the moment on the winter bike and the jury is still out.

Ride Sierra Nevada were good fun. BIG mountains up and fun down. Plus, Sean is a top bloke.

Early 90s Diamond Back Ascent SE. Fully rigid, whippy steel frame that was obsolutely fantastic. Closely followed by the first generation SC blur (great bike to ride, pain in t'ar5e to maintain).

As Andy P and others have said, cadence, heart rate, power, etc. are important on a turbo trainer, not distance "covered". Measuring distance just seems like something that you would do to say "well I rode 10 million miles this year mwah mwah mwah".

Don't understand it.

Why?

Had the same prob with a dt swiss hub. In the end, even after cleaning it out and re-greasing, the pawls were just too damaged after all the skipping. Had to replace them but now it's all good. Get the hub serviced. You might be surprised.

Pistola – Cheers for that. Looks a top route. Any details? My email is in my profile.

Hal – Will defo drop you a line at some point. I've got good memories of Ballater from my yoof.

One large bag of chips?

BofA – Up to a foot or two of snow with lovely ice underneath. Total mayhem!

I'm not sure about going anywhere near Montrose!! The second half of the coast to coast is pretty much confirmed as Bonar Bridge to Ullapool but I was thinking about tacking on a ride up the Dee valley before hand to relive one of the best rides of my yoof. Trying to make it up to Bonar Bridge as far offroad as possible. Any ideas (other than taking most of it on the old railway path)?

Don't have a photo but, we did replace a missing pivot with a multi-tool and some zip ties. Lasted about 3 hours.

If I was you, I'd go for a nitezone vest over your jacket. Bit spanner looking but they beat the pants off any jacket I've seen and they're cheap as.

Went there a good 10 years ago and had a cracking time. Did manage to fall off more than was reasonable on the freeride trail from the top of the mountain above Malcesine. Looks fantastic. I'll have to go again.

I would've thought most would as long as you keep your receipts for the bits. That's what I've done for my build and M&S seem happy enough.

I live in Stirling too. Don't even think about trying to get round the bypass during rush hour. Either re-arrange so that you hit Edinburgh at about 9:30 (would mean getting down to GT at about 10:00 and leaving home at about 8:45) or go earlier and get a dawnish ride in before your mates turn up :-)

I like the route up and over the green loch personally. Absolute cracker. Never been convinced by the burma road. Lots of interminable climbing for little reward (except for the fantastic views that is). Definitely call into bothy bikes and ask for some recos.

I've just been having a look at this myself. I currently live in Oz where I have this type of cover but I'm moving home very soon and I was looking to see who provides this sort of thing in the UK.

I haven't seen the British Cycling thing but Cycleguard offer this sort of insurance. Might be worth looking at.

It’s been a fair few years since I was there, but there were some really challenging trails above Malcesine with a couple of hire shops in the town. I was given two options at the time, the tourist route or the freeride route. Went for the freeride route thinking I was an experienced black route basher and the top part of it was way beyond what I was capable of. Looking back on it now, I’d say it was probably rideable but then again, I’ve done a lot more serious rock riding since then.

The rest of the route was nice twisty singletrack out in a forest before descending into Malcesine again.

The guys in the shop gave me a route map but it wasn’t the best I’m afraid.

Still, this was about 8 years ago, so I’m sure things have moved on since then.

That’s not good. I had the same problem with SRAMs a few years ago but I thought they’d got over it (always seemed to snap just as I was about 15 yards up a nasty wee hill resulting in much over the handlebar nonsense). I switched to a rohloff chain and it didn’t snap or stretch in about two years of riding. Switched back to SRAM in the end though. The rohloff just required so much more pedalling effort and I’m a complete lazy muppet. I heard that SRAM had the same problm about a year ago as well. It seems to go in cycles with them. Some years – good chains, some years – blinking awful chains.

I’d just like to add my tuppenceworth here. I think it’s kind of sad that there are a lot of people getting very het up over this subject. To be fair, the three fellas weren’t under any obligation to stop, it would have just been good manners to do so. Personally, I’ve been mtn biking for a long time and, I’m into the sport to get outside and enjoy the countryside. Yes, I like to push my skills when I’m out but, if I see someone hurt or having a mechanical, I ask if they’re OK. If you can’t spare two seconds out of your life to do that, you really need to ask yourself if going as fast as you can all the time you’re on your bike to the exclusion of others represents the kind of person you want to be. If so, good luck to you … I just wouldn’t necessarily buy you a pint in the pub.

On the subject of GT, I’ve ridden there since before it had any official trails and I’ve got to say I love the place (even now after all these years). Yeah, there are people who could do with taking a quick look at their attitude but, they’ve still got some of the nicest trails out there. I’m living in Oz at the moment and I miss my Friday afternoons doing the black. Inners is bloody good too BTW.