I’ve had Alex rims on my hardtail for around 8 years and they are still true today despite commuting with the bike for several thousand miles, dirt jumping with the bike and generally giving it a hard time. I am more than 90kg as well. The Shimano hubs on mine have needed 3 bearing replacements in that time but still work OK today. Never had a wheel set last so long, I am reluctant to get rid of them.

We’ve had 3 Dysons (one as a wedding present, other one we got from our neighbour who just wanted rid of it and we won one in a raffle, freaky as all that may sound) and they were all crap. Glad I never paid a penny for any of them. We now have a small Miele which actually manages to lift stuff off the floor/carpet, something none of our Dysons ever managed. We have since invested a bit of money into other Miele appliances and have been very happy with all of them.

Agree with TJ, it’s most likely posture. My wife who is a advanced pilates instructor recons your pelvis is probably out of alignment. You would need to see an osteopath to re-align the pelvis and then do exercises to to strengthen and keep the pelvis stable. Not a quick fix unfortunately, stretching only alleviates the pain, doesn’t fix the problem.

50mm on every bike I own. 🙂

Cycleguard just quoted me £509 for 2 mountain bikes worth £3300 and £1500 respectively and an additional £140 for my wife’s £1500 bike! Ouch!

Yep, tried M&S, was quite expensive.

Will try The Wesleyan, thanks!

just answered my own question 🙂

What type of riding will you be doing with them?

Just normal trails? Then the 661 Kyle Straight slim ones are fantastic. Can wear them all day up and down the hills.

Hardcore downhill etc. then you want Raceface Rally FR pads.

Yep, agreed, we love the little Darthvader one too. 😀

Fold and roll and put in top of Ortlieb bag. It doesn’t come out steam fresh but it comes out surprisingly good.

As soon as you sit down against a chair it will crease anyway so don’t about it too much.

Just picked up a very reasonable dinner suit for £150 as we have a black tie May ball coming up. I also didn’t like black tie events but have finally decided to embrace them and now really looking forward to it. 🙂

£200 million, bargain, can I have 2 please?

Robgarrioch, just drop to a 50mm stem and you’ll be fine, probably enjoy riding it more too. 🙂

Turn the tables, tell her you were kind of thinking it’s time for a break and actually glad she brought it up. Offer to help her pack and see what happens. 😀

Carbon cranks on my Spesh Enduro, been perfect. No issues to report at all.

Hein Gericke sells it too in a nice big roll.

We met on a blind date that was supposed to be between my best mate and her. He couldn’t go and so I went instead. Married very happily for 10 years now. 😀

My wife is a pilates instructor and so it is no surprise that I would suggest that route. I am in front of my PC 15hrs a day and have had back issues here and there but since she has put me on a stretching program I have never had any problems since.

You need to find a person that is good at what they do. I have spent money with physio’s, chiropractors, etc. on back issues in the past and they never did anything for me other than lighten my wallet.

Sitting down shortens your hip flexors, hamstrings, etc. and they need to be stretched out. Riding bikes and running in between just shortens the muscles more! Stretching is where it’s at. 🙂

The new Enduro’s are everything the old SX’s were and more. I’ve had 2 SX’s and now a new 2011 Enduro Expert and it’s absolutely awesome. Lighter, climbs real well and descends like a downhill bike.

I used to wear my Omega Planet Ocean on my bikes but have decided something a bit cheaper would be better in case it gets smashed so got one of these:

Thanks!

Yes, get one. Awesome piece of kit. We have an iPad and iPad2. iPad2 is newer and nicer and more importantly faster.

No Flash, no problem. I am an eCommerce consultant, spend tons of hours a day online and consult almost daily to large retailers about user experience and design and most of them are on a path away from flash. Most sites these days support iPad and other mobile browsers.

There is far more to it than surfing the web, you’ll use it more than you might think.

Yes, I am thinking the same thing after being smacked in the eye TWICE this weekend by some random branch. I have a set of Specialized mountain bike glasses, just didn’t wear them!

http://www.pentax.co.uk/en/product/16427/Photo_Cameras.html

iPad

My boy loves his Specialized Hotrock 20. He does everything on it. His sister on the other hand loves her Isla bike.

The Spesh Hotrock is very near perfect, all I did was add a mega range cassette at the back and and he now climbs everything in his path. He turns 8 next month and he has done most of the Cwmcarn XC route in South Wales.

We stayed in the Radisson Blu SAS resort in Golden Sands last year for 10 days and it was good. It’s a nice hotel with great apartments, specially the self catering ones but unfortunately the hotel often runs promotions where they try and sell time share so there were about 50+ English couples/groups on a cheap getaway being shown around and sold to. If you don’t mind being sold you and go on one of their promotions you can get a really cheap holiday but it just wasn’t our thing. There isn’t much going at the hotel itself in the evenings but there were a few beach parties that just sprung up near there and it was a short taxi ride pretty much anywhere.

We have family in Valletta and travelled to Gozo. Next time I go I will definitely stay in Gozo. Good diving all around the islands if you go right time of the year. Depends what you are into, you can hire a boat and take yourself pretty much anywhere and there are some stunning places where you can anchor and just hang out for the day, snorkeling and eating on the boat.

Just replaced my 60Csx with a 800 and love it. Brilliant bit of kit!

Second what fbl said, get a screen protector immediately, the screen does scratch reasonably easily.

http://Www.sugru.co.uk

Yes, it is brilliant. You just download the PDF and suck it into iBooks and voila it sits there on your book shelf. The rendering is pretty good too.

@molgrips: not talking about anyone in particular on this thread or another. Just gets on my goat that some people feel a desperate need to hate something. It used to be Bill Gates and it just happens to be Steve Jobs more recently. It is the best product for the moment, who cares who it is made by!?

@SkillWill: Sky News has one of if not the best iPad video apps available. BBC news have been the poor second cousin of anything on the iPhone/iPad. Their execution of news on these devices are pretty poor.

@Doug: can’t say anything to that. Maybe just move along, nothing to see here. 😀

Apple wants to sell products and if Flash was so great they would have put it on the devices. Simple as that. The around 25-30 million iPad’s sold, the around 100 million iPhones sold and all the recent Macbook Airs that shipped without flash is some indicator that lack of flash is not a killer for most people.

Yes Flash has already reappeared in some other form, it’s called HTML5. 🙂 A hell of a lot of video sites now support HTML5 and works well on the iPad including your most popular porn sites. 😀 Flash is a relatively old technology that simply hasn’t kept up with mobile as much as they could have and unfortunately in a lot cases hurts the user experience more than it helps it.

Lack of Flash support is mostly a non issue. I VERY rarely now come across sites that don’t fully support the iPad and when I do I just don’t bother with them anymore and look for an alternative. I am an Ecommerce consultant and spend huge amounts of time online.

What USB devices would you want to connect? Your camera can connect with it via the memory card, there are USB chargers available for it and a few limited accessories. Its not really a device designed to be your one and only but does cross over with other devices such as laptops and phones quite a bit. As for carrying extra storage or data I do that via Dropbox. Other than that I personally have no need for USB connectivity.

Once you get over the idiotic anti Apple arguments and make peace with the fact that it’s just a tool with an Apple logo on it you’ll find it’s currently the only tablet worth buying. I do hope it gets a competitor soon to push innovation but I do love my iPad.

I have a Command post and like the fact that is has a set drop point as you know the seat is at a particular point and get used to it in that position. I do want to try a Reverb though.

@Vortexracing – sorry mate, English not my first language, my brain not yet working properly this morning. Should have said ‘in their normal guise’ but changed my mind about the sentence half way through. 😀

Oh and to also answer your other question, they are heavy and very long when folded up. So long that they don’t fit sideways in most cars (doesn’t fit sideways in my Jeep Grand Cherokee) so you have to lay them diagonally and then they take up a ton of awkward space.

Last time I saw Jedi he had a van so it might not matter but I still have one of those cheaper Argos steel shelters (£80) and I now have a Transporter T5 and it even annoys me in that as I have to lay it long ways and slide it under one of the seats. Also a pain to store in the garage with the bikes and others stuff.

I am a big boy and still find the thing heavy to handle. 😳

Jedi, if possible get a compact one with an aluminum frame. The steel ones weigh a ton and are very long. At first you might not think it’s worth spending the extra but trust me it is.

This is the place I used. They do custom printed compact shelters in ali: http://www.surfturf.co.uk/protex_compact.htm

A 3m X 3m shelter with sides will set you back about £400-£500.

I am ordering an Islabike for my 4yr old tomorrow and my 7 year old got a Specialized Hotrock 20 for his last birthday. I would easily spend £600+ on a decent bike for my kids if I thought it would make them better riders. Both my kids have Honda dirt bikes and they were just under £1k each. Some crazy dad’s spend £4000+ on 50cc KTM’s for their kids before the kids can walk! There is definitely a market as long as the bikes are quality and work for the kids.

Doesn’t matter which way you run, heal or toe, all running shortens hamstrings. Only way to lengthen them is to stretch them properly. Short hamstrings cause lots of problems including lower back problems. Your hamstring is attached the the back of you knee on your lower leg so wrapping your legs under your chair when you are sitting down shortens them further.

http://beebleblog.com/2007/09/12/leg-stretches-hamstring-stretches/

Working as a copper in South Africa we patrolled an area that were seperated by a row of burnt out houses. One of them had a stunning looking TV aerial that my sergeant wanted since his got melted by lightning a week or so earlier. We decided to ‘acquire’ said aerial for him when it got dark later on. We came back later that night and I was propping him up so he could reach the nuts and bolts to loosen it. I looked right and straight down the barrel of a 9mm handgun about 7 meters away from the corner of the house.

I remember seeing the flash and hearing the bang. I dropped on my back, got my gun out and returned fire but he was gone by then. Later found out the bullet had cut a nice long slit in the side of my police cap that I was wearing that night. Still have the cap as a reminder of how dangerous TV aerials are. 😀

Pretty sure the Dropoff won’t be reopening there as that is Ian’s brand name. Whatever cafe will be opening there won’t be called the Dropoff.

Specialized Command post is awesome too. Mine has no play in it at all and the bar operation is great. I have the 5inch version with 3 positions. Love it, won’t ride a bike without it now.