I’d buy one tomorrow if I had the money! Seems like maintenance has been considered quite extensively and it looks great.

I’d also argue that you don’t want a massive drop seatpost on an xc bike, a lot of the time you just want to nudge it down a fraction so you can still sit for a second to recover but its a bit out of the way. even with my 125mm drop post i get annoyed if I’m a bit heavy handed (heavy- bummed??) and it the seat drops too low

What rubbish! It’s very very rare I pay attention to TV shows and know I actually feel let down 🙄

Surely setting up for another series though

Yeah I thought that too

I don’t think Hastings is H but clearly something is up with him. Any thoughts? I wonder if he is John Corbett’s dad? Something from his past given the looking at old class photo etc

There is also the economic consideration with the cost of cassettes, smaller chainring keeps you in the smaller sprockets longer which are more durable!

I’ve gone from 34 to 32 recently simply due to lack of availability. I can’t say I noticed a difference.

I’m the same as you but a day later @tpbiker – jab yesterday, feeling a bit ropey now, just light nausea and tiredness. Not too bad, just conscious of been not 100% really. Feel like I need a snooze but that could be a typical Friday feeling!

Beaten to the obvious shimano and fishing stuff

Can’t hink of anything else off the top of my head.

The mis-spelling of definately thing.. I reckon thats a deliberate red herring as its surely one of the most common speeling mistakes (personally i tink thats a better way to spell it).

Woudl Chloe Gates be old enough to be bishop?

Nice one @garage-dweller
Think I’ll give it a crack too. I had an ardent on the front a few years ago and didn’t like that so a bit wary as it’s kind of similar but nothing ventured…

My understanding was less than 2.5m, less than 30sq M and you didn’t need planning.

@CheezybeanZ – valid point, I’ll need to look into that. It’s all very preliminary at the moment, just wanted a number on my head

thanks @Kahurangi – thats a useful set of values.

@surfer – looks very nice!

Yeah that would be much more palatable price wise! Don’t even need an up and over door.

In Wales so I guess similar costs. Probably at the top end of what I was imagining! Bikes might have to live in the house.

I had this issue, ended up buying an slx cassette for significantly more than the last xt cassette i bought.

i think all news outlets are guilty of it, just taking different scare stories based on their target demographic.

re. vaccines: In wales you can sign up online* to get on a queuing list for the various health boards. I signed up yesterday and got a text today saying I could book for weds/thurs. Ended up going for next week due to timing, but could have got the next couple of days if I’d been free.

*different pages for different health boards, but googling finds them if you want to sign up, I think WalesOnline have a list of them.

Yes it winds me up too. My four year old is now scared of dogs because of this sort of behaviour. I just put it down to the unceasing rise of the self absorbed and scowl internally

@garage-dweller I am planning on the same (Forekaster from rear to front, faster tyre on rear) so post up how it works out if you do try!

I think you’ll struggle to find a better 27.5 race bike than the scale. I love mine and I only have the alu version. Spend the cash on nice bits for it 👍

I sometimes idly look at new race bikes and they do 100% seem to be 29ers

@TiRed –

Confidence interval for incidence of thrombotic events is another matter

That was what i was getting at. Given a presumably low number of people under 50 having been vaccinated, I would have thought the confidence intervals on incidence of thrombotic events would be pretty large? Is that information presented anywhere?

@theotherjonv

From the powerpoint, that data is “Numbers of cases of the blood clot reactions provided by MHRA up to March 31st in five-year age-bands. Observed rates smoothed using a Poisson regression on age, with log-link”

It would be nice to see confidence intervals and sample sizes (number vaccinated per age group). I tried to look for numbers vaccinated but the NHS data I found curently lumps all under 50s together in some tables and doesnt report under 50s in others.

@TiRed , or the other statistical modellers – presumably some correction is made for the larger sample sizes in the older age brackets?

Personally, I’m feeling very anxious about this. I was feeling really positive a couple of weeks ago but no longer. I feel like I need a better grasp on the data and risk before having the AZ vaccine.

As for the allowing abroad travel thats f-ing ridiculous. Can’t even see my folks at the moment and in a month everyone can go to magaloof, share shots and neck strangers. Makes no sense!

What stil missing is the numbers vaccinated in each age group and the incidence for each age group calculated from that. They have the numbers and the maths is easy, but they know the stats wouldn’t look good.

Yes, thats what I want to see.

Also, I am mildly concerned that most other nations are saying not for below 50+s and the Uk is saying not for below 30s. I can’t help think this is pragmatic in that we have so much of the AZ vaccine to use.

@theotherjonv

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mhra-issues-new-advice-concluding-a-possible-link-between-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-and-extremely-rare-unlikely-to-occur-blood-clots

The data is in there. It’s not a daily report, but was updated as of a week ago’s data.

The data’s not really there though is it, just an overview. @Edukator ‘s example of a couple in one hospital is worrying and I agree, I think for confidence to be re-instated we need transparent regularly data on the issue in the same way we’ve had daily/weekly detailed updates on case, hospital admissions and deaths. Is a decent dataset available to view anywhere with number of 1st doses, number of clots, number of low platelets and number of deaths per 5-10 year age band. @TiRed, do you know? I couldn’t find it.

Given that the reported assumption is that incidences take up to 1 month to manifest and vaccination is moving so swiftly, we may be under estimating the issue in younger cohorts.

@Del – is that supposed to be a link? It’s just coming up as a number on my phone

Isn’t comparing the clotting risk a bit like comparing apples and oranges? I know quite a few people who have had DVT and have been fixed pretty easily; not sure if this is spin or not but the media makes out this type of clot associated with the az vaccine is more dangerous?

I also worry that with a 4-14 day lag between getting the vaccine and getting complications, as there is an age related component the numbers of those affected might ramp up quickly given the speed of roll-out and strategy of starting with the oldest. Maybe it’s a happy co-incidence that rate if first vaccine is going to slow as they give second jabs, so more time can be spent looking at the issue.

I ‘down-countried’ my xc race bike last autumn: dropper post and forekaster rear, high roller 2 front. The tyres have been great, very confidence inspiring. I am probably going to switch the forekaster to the front and put on a more standard xc rear tyre now it’s drier

You and me both &joepud – but my understanding is you don’t know till you turn up.

The low platelet thing – does that happen without the clotting? Do you have to then have to take medicine for the low platelets and how long does that take to recover from?

Personally, as a mid-thirties fit person who works at home and is very cautious on the covid rules side of things, I’d not have the AZ vaccine at present.

I am a scientist and I understand risk. I’ve not had a chance to dig into the published numbers but from a skim read, at present it seems too close cut. Have enough non-health issue <50 year olds had the the AZ vaccine yet to have a good handle on the numbers of something very rare? I though so far we were still on over 50s or health issues.

Also conceptually, if something bad happens, there is a difference in making a choice to have a jab and accidentally catching covid.

I’d happily have the Pfiezer if offered though.

I think I’m probably the least fit I’ve been in a long time!

You and me both – the lack of the cycle commute had knocked 6+ hrs a week excersize off and I’m finding less time for recreational cycling too!

Road and mtb have very different postures, so if you were serious then training with power on a mtb on road or smooth offroad makes absolute sense.

I use power on my cx as I find power is good for shorter intervals because HR is too unreliable.

THe garmin pedals are two to three times the cost of most single sided crank PMs so I’d rather just have a couple of crank based options!

I agree with Rocketdog, and its been commented about by others near me; all the footpaths, bridaleways, permissive paths etc are all much wider, much muddier and churned up by foot fall.

Its hardly surprising though:
1) its been a wet winter
2) more people are walking beacuse there is nothing else to do
3) people cant drive to the places that are typically drier to walk so have to make do with the muddy paths whatever the weather
4) people are stepping off the paths to one side to socially distance making everything wider.

I hope that it will recover swiflty though as spring comes.

Thread diversion over – it is very frustrating not bieng allowed to drive!

If outdoor transmission is low risk (not zero risk) it makes complete sense to “open up” the out doors as much as possible through the rest of the year, once prevalence is low enough, as a much needed release valve.

Yes I agree – based on what I see on social media people are getting highly frustrated in Wales with such minimal changes being announced today despite numbers being lower than previously stated thresholds. Seems like just letting people drive to beauty spots would be an easy win.

not under the tories!

A bike???

I would have called it an alley
In the south

@vdubber67 – I have to say I lust after one for post cx, but at £150 I’ll stick to trying to protect my modesty with a half-closed car door.

😀 I was about to post that they’ve become popular in Swansea with people who think they live in Gower!

@IdleJon – You mean the sort of people who refer to their suburbs as villages? :-) :lol:

When you see a few of them waddling along together they remind me of a swarm of daleks!

Same by me. Particularly popular with dog walkers.

I tend to go for a bowl of muesli just before bed then a coffee and a banana first thing as I head out

I don’t have a fancy turbo, just a really old basic one, and just use my power meter for zwift. I can imagine the experiance is better if zwift is changing the resistance based on gradient, but in terms of a good blast, just trying to keep up on a crit style race is fun

@sbtouring – exactly same as me re the ramp test, I kind of get to a point that my brain says ‘well your more or less there, may as well stop’ and its really hard to push past that. It’s why I’m going for the zwift races at the moment, I don’t have motivation otherwise and I can start thinking of structured training in a couple of months when I’ve ‘raced’ myself out of a bit of a lockdown related funk and have an idea of whether there will be a cx season.

@whitestone, I’ve not done one ramp test when I haven’t thought I could have maybe gone a bit harder – I normally end up editing my ftp by a few watts to compensate. Don’t remember having that feeling when it was the 8 minute test!