quite like my salsa vaya – bit sluggish on the road/gravel paths compared to my old jake the snake and cross check but discs are awesome and its much more fun off road :)

i hate riding on the road mainly due to issues in the OP – sold my road bike a while ago in favour of a CX bike which i ride on mix of off/on road routes, sticking to very quite roads, gravel paths and ncn routes (plenty round here). in fact its quite enjoyable! :D

results on line now

ROOTS AND RAIN[/url]

royal pain about the timings as my stages 1 and 2 were fine, got caught up in traffic on stage 3 (overtook 3 riders in front of me) and crashed into a tree trying to overtake one of them on the steep stuff :oops: need to brush up on my overtaking/shouting skillz! great day riding :D

some of the times for first section are wrong apparently – but sections 2 and 3 are correct. they were using a new timing system for this race so probably ironing out gremlins still

House is directly next to a 4 lane roundabout so that’s not possible.

simples – just ditch any car you want on the roundabout and be done with it

and if you live on a floodplain, invite all your neighbours to join you when it rains…

plenty of riding to keep you busy without a guide, depends on how independent you are, and if you don’t mind climbing! as we had a car we spent a few days in capiliera, staying in a pension and riding the stuff in the alpujarra area, then a few more days over at a climbers campsite near the main resort area, where we did some more higher altitude riding. michael at switchbacks helped me with a map showing the main trails/paths but i think you can buy one from the main resort towns. be aware you’re not supposed to ride paths above 2000m that are less than 2m wide or some crazy rule like that – we didn’t have any problems with locals and plenty of people biking the stuff we were doing

no response to my email sent a few days ago here. sent because i got fed up of waiting for 15mins on the phone being 7th in the queue… they missed a few things from my order, which is a first as they’ve been good before. must be busy

from the descend hamsterley FB page

Tracks open as normal this weekend, the track off the 4x and the last part of the NPS will be out of bounds due to NDH Enduro

karl1824 – lukcily the old roots are still there in places, hopefully an ‘alternative’ ie: old pikes teeth line will develop alongside the new stuff! :)

there last weekend rumours are the transmission/accelerator/nitrous route like the tt for one section, and the 4x to old nps (by the grove car park) plus another which i’ve got a feeling could be beehive as its quite dry over that side at the moment. had a look at the new pikes teeth – unfortunately its is going to go down as classic example of how to take a perfectly good (in fact great) section of trail and apply the big standard mundane trailcentre gravel coaster imo, would have been much better spending the money extending the existing trails. sad times

casio f91w, had a few as i’ve destroyed a couple in the last 10 years but for less than a tenner a pop it doesn’t matter. plus when the strap snaps/breaks makes a convenient handlebar mounted timer/clock :)

alpkit gamma or manta. can then be run low power and back up as a high power light. found the manta bright enough to ride off road in the dark on its own when i forgot my main light :oops: (albeit easy trails)

sold our 1.8tdci a few months ago, 4years we had it and got exactly what we paid for it – £400!. i’d look for working windows and rear door locks. the rear ones on ours stopped working, we didn’t bother fixing it though as we could get along without them but really should have (just lazy). parts are easy to get hold of if you’re into diy mechanicing

wheel bearings and brake line corrosion were biggest costs on ours in its last year. it had a few patches of body work rust so wasn’t the prettiest – but check the sills as above as they can be MOT failure. cheap and reliable car, saw it being driven round the town the other day so still working :)

it works – i commuted on a kona unit 29er for a year or 2 with skinny tyres. maybe not the trendiest looking bike parked outside a coffee shop though! on-one inbred would probably fit the bill too

genesis fortitude ss with skinny tyres? when you want to change it back to a ss 29’er, stick the fat tyres back on! and it rides great off road too

looks good for £20 – but you’ll be better off fixing a down tube strap onto it to stop it swinging side to side. would be interested in seeing how you get on with it as i’d be interested for my commuter (have a revelate tangle bag already for mtb)

if you do it, take your time. my girlfriend was riding up to about 5/6months when it started getting too difficult. that was just local stuff and commuting, i think the last big ride was about 3 months in, which included part of the C2C route to newcastle as we live by it. hills were the most problematic, which there are a few of on the C2C in the lakes/western pennines

i take it you doing the sustrans C2C route btw? if you are doing it with a support vehicle maybe you could do the odd flatter day and get lifts for the hilly days

oh and congrats on the news :)

just set up a 110bcd atb middleburn triple set up on my vaya with conpact triple rings. 113mm bb spacing looks spot on and not blown up yet

been using shimano mw81’s last few years, great boot only thing is they are wider than my other specialized shoes so they can often catch the crank arm when pedaling (and yes they are set up properly) but maybe thats just due to my wierd shaped feet and the sizing up thing. yes i got 2 sizes up (eu sizing not uk ie 47 instead of 45) plenty of space for thick warm socks but could have got away with a 46

http://www.club80-90.co.uk/%5B/url%5D

thanks for clearing that up butcher

beamish is good, but only ever ridden round there with the oddsox in the dark so have no idea of how to get back to the stuff we did! also add holywell dene in to the mix too – can link over to the coast easily from there too

can make a good fig 8 loop from the greeside/coalway lane – wylam – heddon trails too, easily accessible from newcastle either along the cycle route or train to wylam :)

ah posibly these bungalows

and path going past church opposite?

thanks for the heads up butcher – i assume you mean the woods off the main road to dipton?

i know the trail from hamsterley to chopwell and where it drops down from the derwent walk so have an idea of where it comes out – would be a canny drop as pontop is pretty much the highest point in the area :) my mate lives in medomsley and he’s seen some decent looking trails walking just haven’t been on bike yet

pual – should be ok for sunday morning i’ll email you to let you know. cheers!

also if your into dh’y stuff chr do more informal races over summer at wooler – worth exploring, and ndh do dh and enduro races inc chopwell/hamsterle/kidland etc. theres a race on at penshaw monument run by locals which looks a laugh too although only short trails there

i’m 6ft and had a 56cm (just sold it) fitted and rode great :)

no gap in mine but the bearing died after about 6months. 2nd headset totally fine though…

hi finners chopwell tumblers is another club that meet up every thursday at 7pm in the main car park at chopwell. plenty of local riding about just tends to be relatively flat until you either get out west to tyne/derwent valleys or north to rothbury and beyond… happy to show you around chopwell/some local stuff sometime when i manage to get out (just moved and 4month old baby…)

paulrockcliffe – now i’m finally moved in fancy that bolts law ride out? also i’m keen to explore pontop pike above lanchaster heard some trails up there

i have the 30 – its good and worth the money but chafing is a pain in the neck (literally!). also i put some holes in it where i strapped it to a pannier rack and it caught the tyre :oops: if they put the straps wider it would be better for me. mines ended up becoming one of my muddy bike gear containers for lobbing in the boot of the car now as i prefer my seatpack bag for bivvying

as for food i always seem to end up living on couscous and kids size cans of alphabetti spaghetti for a few days

when you spend a minute holding family up on a walk as you scope out a ‘cheeky’ line…

this happened to my little brother with his nicked bmx when he was about 16/17. unfortunately for the unlucky scrote (a local well know pilferer) words weren’t even offered to negotiate its return…

iphone 4 – great for fannying around on the internet/faceache/whatever. utterly utterly useless as a phone. pretty sure some gremlins have got in there and running riot just to piss me off

iffoverload – pm’ed you on pinkbike i’ll take one :D

had a mare fitting a 2.0L subaru engine in it a few years ago but now it runs sweet and loads more reliable. had plenty of good times in him so far though. next project is building a kids bed for the little un for when she gets a bit bigger but for now she’s in the moses basket on the passenger seat… :) looking forward to taking it to europe for a month in summer :)

i’m doing it – not raced for a while but looking forward to it. nothing should be too crazy, some of the off piste stuff is pretty loose but you’ll get practice to check it out first. if you’re happy with all of the black you should be fine. here’s their guidance for difficulty level – 5 is full on DH track standard

Course rating (1-5 with 5 being very technical): Rating 3.5.
Each special stage is natural terrain including roots and rocks. There are no jumps or drops that can not be rolled

jim25 – Member
I’ve already used a paintable rubber damp proof membrane on the walls and first 6″ of the floor

i’ve used this for my floor but wish i hadn’t really – apparently (following a lot of DIY net searching) this stuff is meant to be trapped between two solid layers as it stays as a sticky rubber (liquid) state ie: it’s not solid. for floors its meant to have a screed over, but i didnt have the level difference required to meet the existing adjacent tiled floor so had to make do. it lost its stickiness with the amount of dust/grit/cement trodden into it so i tiled straight on it and it seems ok for now – well not movement yet! but the exposed bits behind the skirtings are still ‘sticky’ a month later. not wet but not exactly solid either – definitely soft and could be scraped off :( i’d be tempted to use battens and fix the board to them, better than risking the dot and dab failing to stick to the damp proof stuff and the whole lot falling down! good luck!

i’ll be there as for tactics i’ll try and make it to the start line more hungover than last year ;)

niche end of a niche market for those who couldn’t give a monkeys how its propelled or are less fortunate than the i’m fitter/younger/more sneerful than you brigade – looks quite fun to me although illegal on roads in the uk with the e bike speed/power restriction

billytinkle – Member
I think ebikes are great. Would love to have one for my commute – much better/cheaper to run than a car and wouldn’t be far off a car in total journey time for me.

i’m with you on this. my commute is relatively hilly 13miles, factor in a headwind, rain and a hard days graft it would be nice to have an easier ride home every day which would be comparable to driving without the hassle of parking in town. i can see why the strava chasers and elitists would feel begrudged as they may feel its cheating, but if an e bike meant i got home 15-20 minutes earlier each night and was less knackered to spend more time with my family frankly i couldn’t give a sh1t what they think. i may even rob some KOMs too – bonus 8)

yep i ride both too – flats for dh/full sus/jump bike and spds for everthing else. i always used to ride flats and only started with spds for DH for a while then changed back to flats for that as preferred the spds for xc

cheers got a vest and jacket for a grand total of £30 to leave in my commute bag :D