spesh trigger pro, has a fairly solid centerline

They are also spectacular puncture magnets – on paper they look great, but had 2 work colleagues try to commute on them, and punctures were a daily occurrence for both.

Isn’t this stating the obvious? The beauty (IMO) of the truly skilled player is their ability to force opponents in to making mistakes or their ability to anticipate what that opponent is about to do (you could argue that the obviousness of some passes/moves are also a type of basic error).

As you teach racket sports, you must also understand the importance of this in those sports too? i.e. How many points are won in tennis by capitalising on a poor choice of shot or simply from an unforced error by the opponent? Probably not 90% (not sure it’s really 90% in Football either), but hugely important nonetheless.

Absolutely, taking the initiative and putting your opponent under pressure is pretty much a characteristic of any (high level) competitive sport from Football, to Tennis, to E-Sports.
However, as the ‘level’ declines, generally the rate of unforced errors increases. And its not just football – go look at unforced error rates womens tennis for example.

deadlydarcy – Member
Frankly, that’s bollocks. Enjoy it. Don’t enjoy it. But don’t be making stuff up now.

Football fanboi detected.
Seriously, go download 100 games, watch the goals, but watch the defensive play with a coaches hat on. 90% fails, 10% genuinely good goals.
Come back next week and tell us how you got on – and if you have ripped up your season ticket.

Modern footballers:
Athleticism – yes, much more than most give them credit for.
Skill – sometimes – generally not that impressive compared to other sports
Professionalism – terrible

I actually quite enjoyed football until my mid 20’s when I actively began coaching in racket sports. When you spend hours a week watching athletes perform, seeing what they do well, what mistakes they make etc, then you go and watch football, what you see is horrific.

Give me footage of every goal scored in the premiership last season, and i’ll bet you I could demonstrate in 90% of them it came down to a basic defensive error that would be taught at under 14’s level.
Frankly, the number of basic errors footballers make, they would be a million miles from professionals in nearly any other sport.

Castelli Entrata is a good call. I’ve got one, and it looks like it’ll be perfect for what you want, but didnt like to suggest since i’ll not get to wear it to confirm for a couple of months yet (See Scotland comment above :D ).

I’d go with something like a race king 2.2. Inflate to 50psi for the road and let air out again for your mixed ride. The black chilli compound seems to tolerate road abuse quite well. Got >1k miles on my Xkings, and they will probably die due to cuts before the tread wears out.

What application is it for?
Gravel bike? MTB that you ride on road as well?
Do you have any other requirements than not heavy, long lasting and >45c?

@relliott6879, yes, those would be perfect. Exactly what i had in mind.
Some folks find they roll a bit slow and the ride is harsh, but cant say i’ve noticed it much on my set.

Move to Scotland. House prices are cheaper than a Rapha jersey and its too cold to need a short sleeve top 11 months of the year anyway.

Dont do it.
Did it myself on a Civic diesel and it cost about 2mpg until i had a full service and replaced with the proper stuff.

As josh said – kit that can survive paris roubaix will certainly survive a canal path.

The bigger problem you are likely to face is cuts to the tread and/or sidewall. I’d look for a set of narrow touring tyres rather than normal road tyres.

Not tried Rons yet, but i find xking a fabulous tyre. Rolls crazy fast, and grips in a wide range of conditions.

I’m going to go ahead and buck the trend and say it looks like an excellent XC course. Would love a facility like this locally to ride on. Several of the rock gardens actually look quite gnarly – incredible how they ride them so fast/hard on 100mm XC bike with skinny XC tyres on. Willing to bet plenty of folk on here (including some enduroists) would be taking B lines in places.

As for Sagan – expecting midfield mediocrity.

To summarise, she’s been using the drug as a PED for years and it says in big print on the box what the active ingredient is. It’s a shame they didnt give her the full 4 years.

Marmot have just introduced a new trip in Gran Canaria for next season: Problem solved[/url]

A little undecided on it myself. Looks a great holiday, but maybe a little too much climbing to act as a winter training camp.

No, definitely not in your head.
Early last season I replaced some tubed Crossmarks with some tubeless XKings and gained 1-1.5mph ave overnight across most surfaces.

Similar story several years ago on my first bike, lost 1mph going from race kings to captains.

Do a little research on the topic, and you’ll find that some tyres that are supposed to be fast, just aren’t (see Crossmark example above).

Chicken legs here.
I find it really hard to build and maintain muscle mass.
Managed to build a little after a full winter of short duration, high effort big gear sessions, and lost it all again within a month of transitioning to more threshold type intervals :(

Nice one :D

If you are going to Hyundai, take a look a the i40 tourer.

Still waiting for the out campaign to provide me with some facts and figures so i actually have a decision to make. As the group wanting to break the status quo its up to them to drop a 500 page book full of statistics through my door so i can make an educated choice.

Since thats clearly not going to happen that only leaves voting in or not voting as choices.

Felt very much the same during the Scottish referendum. The public are being asked to make huge decisions, but being provided with no data upon which to base their vote.

Its about time we had a decent spell of weather up here, its about 4 years overdue! Hasn’t always been that warm, but i’ll take it compared to cold/rainy.

Back on topic – tad concerning for Schwalbe when sunny days in Fife outnumber procore users in the UK!

A) To say trailblazers suck on the front is a bit of a generalisation. Like any other tyre, they perform better in some conditions than others. We are having an amazingly dry spell here in fife, and on dry buff trails it has insane grip. Not tried it yet, but expect same to be true of trail centre hardpack.

B) I dont feel like + and procore address the same problem. One give a huuuge contact patch and grip, the other allows you to batter through rock gardens without paying a penalty of increased pressures.

dannyh – Member

Coyote – Member
Theres a good reason they dont show more of the womens – its dismal.

We bow to your prowess. Good to know you can put those little ladies in their place.
Totally misses the point. Red Bull need to attract audiences – watching someone really struggle haltingly down a track they can’t ride is not good ‘telly’. That’s why they don’t show the slower men as well.

I bet even the likes of Rachel Atherton and Manon Carpenter have a bit of them that wishes there was more competition.

Whether or not the poster could ride it himself/herself really doesn’t come into it when you look at it from a pragmatic point of view.[/quote]

I’m glad someone got it.
A 40s spread across the top 10 is not in any way close racing or entertaining.

Regarding the quality – lets just say; Gee face planted and took it easy thereafter and would have won the womens race. Guitierrez had a semi flat rear and coasted down half the course – also would have won.

For the record – i’m a mincer, i’d most likely soil myself trying to ride a WC DH track. If by some miracle I made it to the bottom the batteries in the timing clock would long since have expired.

Theres a good reason they dont show more of the womens – its dismal. Getting 3rd place with 20s off the pace and a crash, top 10 place for 40s back.

Mens race however was as competetive as usual, only Minnaar with a significant gap. Great run, smooth when he needed to be, and getting some strong pedalling in too.

I dont know about the anaemia, or about your background as a rider, but thats a crazy amount of hard riding in a month, i’d be amazed if you weren’t overtrained. Adding it up comes to around 14hrs a week going hard + your spin classes and running.

By all means go long, or go hard, but combining the two with that regularity is going to put you in a massive energy hole.

Don’t get me wrong folks, I have no particular problem with the condition of the trail, and enjoyed riding it, but when 80-90% of the riders I saw were not taking the natural entry to the berms, it suggests something is not quite working as intended.

everybody fifeandy has these thoughts from time to time daily, especially if they since he’s reached a plateau in their his working career and feels they aren’t he isn’t making progress.

globalti seems to know my innermost secrets 8O

No reason at all why you shouldn’t.
XC/Marathon riders are frequently running a ralph on the front which is just like a less burly rock razor. If you are riding mostly trail centre hardpack it’ll probably work quite well.

Agree with Northwind though, if you are riding terrain that would be conducive to one of these tyres on the front, then you are probably better served by some more XC orientated tyres.

Did anyone else find that Magic Mushroom was in need of some TLC?
Braking bumps on the entry to several berms causing people to take an alternate narrow entry and sharper turn.

Spokes is your best bet
http://www.spokescycles.net/page/13/Contact_Us

Just took the plunge and got myself a cooker 0.
Can anyone point me at the correct size powerlink I need to buy?

Some surprising tyre choices given the conditions.
Zooming the photos shows both Neff and Fontana running a ralph on the front, would have thought Ron or maybe even Nic would have made more sense given how slippy it was.

Cant understand how you can not want £5000 worth of stuff from Wiggle, £500 would barely scratch the surface.

Wheel upgrades,tyres (cos you can never have too many), fancy windproof jackets, expensive shorts (once you’ve had a pair you’ll wonder why you never did before), power meter, a years supply of energy/recovery drink, spare brake pads, cleats, drinks bottles, featherweight shoes that mould to your feet. The list could go on forever.

GT7 Full Lap

From what you have told us you were either going into the event exhausted, or starting out on already low carbohydrate stores.

If you really have overtraining you’ll most likely be showing other symptoms. Chronic fatigue, unexplained muscle aches, grumpy, apathy – even towards things you usually like to do.

If you are showing any of those symptoms in addition to poor form then i’d be taking a full week off, then only short easy spins until you feel good both in general and on the bike.

Some photos up here – no search by number though :(
https://peterjsmith.smugmug.com/Biking/2016/Glentress-7/

MTB generally favours larger more powerful riders. The only thing a lightweight rider has in his favour is gravity, and tends to need a sustained climb to really take advantage of it. On short punchy climbs a larger rider can compensate with brute force for a short period, and offroad, rolling resistance forms a larger part of the overall resistance, which again favours a more powerful rider.

Really nice racing, on a really hard looking course.
Neff is crazy, good skills for sure, but utterly fearless.

Some sealants say specifically not to use CO2, it causes them to dry up.

Yeah, i can mince my way down as far as the corner, but then have to walk the last bit. Properly hairy on narrow XC tyres with saddle thumping you in the ribs as you hang off the back.

Saw a couple of guys rip down it on their enduro sleds, got to admit i was impressed. Screw pedalling one up there in the first place lap after lap though!