I can highly recommend sending friends to live in Switzerland to discover all the gems that lurk in the mountains :D

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Exploring lesser visited (by mtbers) swiss mountains[/url] by Gary Hill[/url], on Flickr

Definitely variable. A couple of weeks ago, I flew with a friend and my bag was slightly over (Evoc bags are heavy!) but nowhere near the 32kg single item limit and friend was slightly under. The checkin nazi made us move stuff between bags to get them both closer to 23kg. Other times they have hardly batted an eyelid at a couple of kilos over.

And, yes, if I go via the BC site, I get the 12% discount shown.

The discount does work, but it is discount against the un-discounted price. So if Wiggle discount something to 10% already, then you get the same price. If it is discounted to 5% then you can get an extra 5%, etc.

I have definitely saved a few pence in the past, though I haven’t ordered anything there for a while.

to #078 Paul Floodgate who gave me a powerlink and #350 RacingChihuahua who lent me his multi-tool for the rest of the race (did you get it off Rory)!

Ah, tool was mine, didn’t manage to track it down on the day but will chase Rory to get hold of it. I hung around at the end of the lap but didn’t spot you coming in.

Hope you got everything sorted.

Gary

I wouldn’t bother – I have an X41 tablet running Windows 7, performance is no worse than when it was running XP. You can get a bit of a speed up from it if you slip an SSD drive in, probably not too expensive these days.

Great day out, even with my puncture/CO2 failure disaster lap :(. Haven’t raced at Stanmer for ages and had forgotten just how much fun the course is.

If any one here is the guy I loaned my Lezyne multi tool to on course, I’d quite like it back. Hung around the finish for a while after that lap but didn’t spot you coming back in.

LMGTFY : http://www.gosurrey.info/olympic-road-cycling/race-times/

I think, I’m not 100% sure, that people received the plan, they just didn’t get the levels of support they expected.

Nope, contact and payment in March, no plan ever delivered.

Plenty of sympathy for the problems encountered, which is one of my reasons for not being an arse and sending loads of grief through twitter or whatever, but that runs pretty thin when you can’t get any response via email.

I would quite happily still take a training plan rather than cash, but that requires some kind of communication :(

Maybe I will get a response to all my unanswered emails. I won’t be holding my breath though.

All those duplicate items of feedback from the same user doesn’t smell very good to me :(

It was doing it for me too on my work PC – also firefox. I figured it was probably a cached redirect from some glitch in the forum last week (when it started happening).

I just cleared info about singletrackworld.com and its working correctly – so either a cache or cookie issue.

The road octalink spline pattern matches (e.g. dura ace, ultegra, 105). But the lengths available are different so you may need to do some measuring/experimentation to see if they would be viable.

Summary of spline patterns and length options here : http://sheldonbrown.com/gloss_n-o.html#octalink

The XTR BBs still sometimes pop up on ebay, but less frequently these days and sometimes a bit pricy.

If the location referred to in Nick’s old posting is the one I think it was, then that was perhaps the 3rd (or more!) time that area had been built up and flattened that I can recall.

I have to admit I was slightly surprised that the much expanded workman’s run had held out for so long as trails in that section of the woods have been flattened before too.

And I recall Nick’s previous efforts to get some trail work going with the acceptance of the FC and the leasehold issues that came up then so it does seem like the chances of getting anything truly official up and running are pretty slim.

But (grumpy old bloke moment) “we” don’t seem to help ourselves out sometimes either – I wonder if the jump onto/across one of the main gravel tracks that recently appeared has survived the latest clear up.

I hope they haven’t flattened any of the more flow-y parts though I can think of some places where I will be surprised if they haven’t :(

Had hoped to be their mixing it up in the 12h singlespeeds again, but I have to be hauling over some big hills in Nice (not so bad really!). Maybe next year!

+1 on a great day out, though a fair amount of mincing around by me (mental note, really most ride offroad more!)

Hope the evil hail storm I hit on the M4 on the way home didn’t make it all the way over for the last few riders!

Not sure I will make it a long to help but have stuck a donation in your paypal pot Nick. good luck, at least the weather is good for now!

Great weekend. 4th time I’ve been and I think this was the best so far, though not having last year’s raging Leffe hangover probably helped! No badgers spotted :)

We were on Oude Kwaremont too, about 2/3 way up for the women’s race and the first 2 passes of the mens race, then we dashed up to Kwaremont square to watch the finale on the big screen before hightailing it for our various ferries and flights.

A few pictures on flickr

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Ballan, Boonen[/url] by Gary Hill[/url], on Flickr

nope. I’m waiting for the 10am sailing to dock :)

Ah – I think we must have crossed paths on the day you set the KOM near Puigpunyent, we saw some Bristol jerseys headed in the opposite direction to us on that day.

Had a great week but slightly (okay, substantially) less mileage than you. Shame about the weather though – looks like its been lovely this week!

I did it a few years back, short write up here : http://bikemagic.com/events/event-features/iron-cross.html

It was a fun and friendly event but it is a long way to go. I happened to be in the US for work at the right time and would do it again that way if I could get a trip timed right. If you want to make a trip of it there are plenty of touristy options around DC and I am sure you could get directed to some other riding.

There have been a few Brits over there, a guy called Ian Briggs who is also a 3 peaks regular has done it several times including the year I was there, and Rob Jebb popped over to win it one year as well.

I got the same offer – had ignored it previously because I had read some bad reports and couldn’t be arsed to change and have it all go to pot. But very tempted to change, especially given the good reports above.

BTW – I was offered a £40 M&S voucher so if that’s not been mentioned you might want to bring it up when you contact them!

Me, but then you know that :)
You’re supposed to be finding us somewhere to stay, not posting on here :)

If you’re after a carbon road frame I may be tempted to sell my FM028 frame/forks/headset size 58 (if thats your size)

Too big for me but would be interested in what you think of it as I’ve been kind of tempted to do a little project with one

Could someone please attach a full stock inventory so i can decide if it’s worth an hour and a half drive

And an estimate as to whether there is likely to be anything left by lunch time tomorrow … :)

That looks great – I was talking with Mike about the possibility of a trip over Christmas but in the end I decided to “scratch a long term itch” by going to Nepal. Kerala is definitely on the radar for a visit at some time though!

Bugger – sorry to hear that mate! It had sounded like things were on the up :( Hope something turns up nice and soon.

It was in their published accounts for 2009 I think, I really can’t be bothered to find them again, but its in there…

Well, the accounts are all on the website, and sure, there are big numbers for legal fees but it doesn’t seem to add up to the figures you quote and certainly doesn’t say “here’s what we stuck in the pot for Lance’s expenses”.

I’m no LA apologist by the way, and I think livestrong seems to be a triumph of marketing over achievement in many ways, but I am a bit of an arse about wanting provocative facts to be substantiated :)

It isn’t a charity no, It was, under the lance armstrong foundation, but LA and his directors quietly turned it into a for profit organisation

Hmm. Not convinced thats actually the case. It is a fact the Livestrong.com is a commercial entity licensed to an external company as opposed to the foundation website at livestrong.org. Also a bit sceptical of the speculation about legal fees – happy to be proven wrong though.

This is a very insightful piece on LiveStrong including what they actually fund these days :

http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/athletes/lance-armstrong/Its-Not-About-the-Lab-Rats.html

A few other things to consider

– how your body works in hot weather will affect how you get on with merino, e.g. do you “run hot”
– merino comes in different weights and one persons experience with a heavyweight fabric won’t necessarily apply to lighter ones

I’ve got loads of merino stuff but generally prefer it for colder weather than hot. I run fairly hot, and my experience of the “keeps you cool when its hot” aspect matches Juans comment “keeps you cool by keeping you wet”, if its hot enough that you start sweating a lot, then you get a good cooling effect from evaporation but I don’t find it particularly pleasant!

The no pong thing is great though – I did 2 weeks in Nepal sleeping and riding in a smartwool base layer without it getting nasty.

Don’t you now have to apply in advance for the Visa Waiver Program (the form you fill in on the plane)? In which case you would hope you would find out in advance that way!

https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/

I got £120 or so on ebay for a virtually identical bike in reasonable working order (rode it 10 miles to work to pass it on to the buyer).

Gary – love the photos – mind if I ask how you planned and arranged the riding logistics? Probably not an option for me, but looks great so I’d be interested to learn more.

Bit of lucky timing really – while I was procastinating about if/when to go and a trip I had an eye on with KE Adventure dropped off their schedule. So faced with a choice of pitching up in Kathmandu and sorting something out on arrival or arranging something in advance I did a bit of searching and turned up an interesting sounding trip around the right dates with http://www.nepalmountainbike.com.

From what we were told, we lucked out with our guide (a french ex-pat) and if planning biking you would want to ask plenty of questions about the type of riding, guiding experience etc. to make sure you get what you want. But you can find people offering trips varying in length from 1 day upwards so don’t write the idea off. It can be as easy as riding out of Kathmandu to the valley rim, and it was an interesting way to see bits of the city away from the chaos of the centre and the touristy parts.

So nice laid back arrangement for riding sorted out and I just booked a flight. We were well looked after from arrival with just a little free time to mooch around Kathmandu doing my own thing before flying out.

It would be pretty easy to pitch up without anything planned and get some stuff lined up. It would just depend on your general feeling about that independent approach and how much time you have available. If you have an idea what you want to do you can track down most of the well regarded agencies online.

If you go trekking, yes you are heading somewhere remote but if my experience of Mustang is representative then you are still very much in the realm of the tourism industry so it is still very friendly, plenty of places to eat and sleep.

Kathmandu is a crazy chaotic place but fun to explore for a few days. Biking around was actually a good way to see it, 5″ of suspension quite good for some of the roads. Traffic is like a study in pedestrians, bikes, cars, etc. being left to their own devices but on the whole seems to work!

Pokhara is more laid back around lakeside though when you get up on the hills you suddenly see it is actually much bigger than you imagined. Even coming from Nepal, the 30 minute flight into Mustang felt like being dropped into a different world.

I did 2 weeks biking in Kathmandu/Pokhara/Mustang over Christmas and New Year. As buzz-l says above – the scenery is pretty spectacular but it is the additional context of the culture and the people that really makes it special. Of course there are big mountains in Europe – but not with quite the same “ever present”-ness as you get from the Himalaya in Nepal.

It is a poor country so there is an element of first-world guilt as you swan around with your expensive bike/camera/etc but certainly when you get away from the big tourist attractions everyone we met was friendly, enthusiastic and keen to know what we were up to. Sounds like Coffeeking has some experience to back up his comments but we did feel very safe wherever we were but admittedly not far off the beaten track and with a guide most of the time. Having been in the mountains, the touristy parts of Kathmandu did grate a little so maybe think about the order you choose to see things.

I’m sure you could hook up some good short treks without too much altitude commitment. Biking worked out quite well as a way to get high but not stay there too long before coming back down to a sensible height.

There are a number of places offering biking – we lucked out with a guide with lots of downhill experience who knew what sort of riding keen bikers were after, apparently many of the agencies do a lot of jeep track routes, but it would still be a good way to explore and see more of the place than you could on foot.

If you like taking pictures, take plenty of memory cards, its a very photogenic place. Selection of mine here :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/garyhill/collections/72157628783377625/%5B/url%5D

So in summary – JFDI :)

Ah, finally have something to add to this thread. Fun in Nepal, with and without bikes:

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Sophie riding back into Kathmandu[/url] by Gary Hill[/url], on Flickr

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Untitled[/url] by Gary Hill[/url], on Flickr

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P1011004[/url] by Gary Hill[/url], on Flickr

Yer on their website with an end of March expected date…

Yes, found those after I saw the thread. Prices look quite keen too.

Keen to see one in the flesh, looks pretty sorted but I can’t quite tell from the photos I’ve seen if it has a really short stroke shock or if part of the shock is just obscured by the link.

I’ve been quite curious about those too – good to hear that there is some news about getting them in the UK, even if it is with Evans!

Ooh, that looks classy. Shame it doesn’t weigh a bit less!

I’m in Southampton – tempted but unreliable!