most i’ve got towards prepping my bike is buying some pipe lagging so the frame doesn’t cut off the circulation in my shoulder when i’m carrying it! i might treat it to some new brake blocks… and dont forget your emergency bag and whistle! :mrgreen:

i’m in, first time as well. not done loads of training but getting one or two 10km off road runs in a week in the build up. not much time on the bike mind… :(

had mine a year or so now (3rd hand..) and no problem, a little play in the bearing but i have new one to put in it when i get round to it. commuting/muddy cx riding too. if you’re churning through the bearings that quick maybe cheaper in the long run to use shimano etc and treat as disposable?!

just did the woodcock st bees-robin hoods bay C2C route over the weekend and planning a road tour along the north yorks coast with the mrs in a few weeks too. will be in new zealand for the whole of november with a mate, not planned a route yet but we’ll be on south island on/off road touring/trekking etc for a few weeks – looking forward to that one :) anyone got any pointers for routes in NZ btw?

Jon Taylor – me and my girlfriend did southern bit a few years ago edinburgh to newcastle. we live in newcastle so took the train up for a day/eve at the festival and rode home. we camped and took panniers, no problem with panniers as although some off road sections its not technical or that narrow. campsites in melrose (caravan club next to rugby ground in centre) and seahouses (bit north of the village although nowhere near as nice as melrose!). plenty of opportunities for shops or pubs/cafes for food on route too

sounds fine for what you carry. used to do similar commute with my timbuk 2 myself, but recently changed to panniers for the weight/shopping/booze/bike parcels from crc etc

no wheels

tried one and didn’t like it, but thanks anyway. would prefer to put proper mounts on the frame if possible

i have one, cant comment on the hex but it feels more roomier than my old zen for the same size

Lemony – you mean the Beyond Hamsterley one? if you are in Newcastle LD Mountain Centre on Dean Street has them in stock

neninja – that route sounds interesting i’ll give it a go next time i’m heading that way. cheers :-)

this guide may be worth a look http://www.beyond-hamsterley.co.uk/%5B/url%5D

i’d recommend route 14 – nice ride round edmunduyers/blanchland with some mixed singletrack/upland moors/fast descents. if you have more time mix it up with route 8 (slaley forest)

alternatively just go to hamsterley and follow the arrows as the black and red are worth doing

cheers, £500 for the 3 weeks would seem reasonable but if i can’t find a similar deal i’ll be camping in a NZ version of tesco tent :wink:

how much did people pay to hire camper vans out there? i’m going for a month in november

some nice bikes on here :) here’s mine, just built up and had one lap of hamsterley red and a 75 mile road ride from newcastle to penrith on it. so far it’s been spot on, much comfier than my old road bike and a hell of a lot lighter although not as comfy/smooth a ride than my cross check

thanks keith, ideally i’d like the trax as read the pockets on the tour aren’t the best, but i’ll bear it in mind in case i’m snookered. cheers

one thing – if you’re forks/frame has the type of brake mount that has the holes for the pin that do not go all the way through the metal, you could just wedge the pin in there. when the v brake is bolted on there’s no where for it to go so it’ll hold itself. unfortunately mine wasn’t so simple…

had the same problem a few years ago – i used a short section of spoke that i glued into the v brake pivot bit where the pin had fallen out of with araldite, worked for a fair few hundred miles of touring and commuting before i stripped the bike down (still got the brakes and would use them again)

more ideas here :)

sorry can’t help on the v front (had them on a day one drop and preferred canti’s for clearance and lack of sponginess) but maybe try increasing the length of the straddle wire/raising the straddle point on the canti’s. seems to have sorted my judder out and they work spot on so maybe worth a try – i’m running frogglegs btw

have you ridden the downhill tracks at hamsterley? no way i’d be wanting to do any of them without my body armour and full face/goggles. if anything since i used to ride dh regularly there about 8-9 years ago the actual DH’ers wear less body armour. the weekend warrior brigade are definitely wearing more

i ride in the drops, it’s fine. come from a mtb background so was weird at first. just a different way of doing things that’s all. most cx courses aren’t exactly like riding down the mega track so you don’t need 3feet wide risers and 200mm discs really (well unless you really need every bit of help you can get to stay upright)

just got my cheque, got the notification letter 2 weeks ago – the tax year its from is 2007/2008 just before i left work to do a masters degree 8O

bought a helmet and a pair of pedals from cyclestore – they emailed me back the next day to tell me the pedals were now out of stock and offered an alternative which i turned down, but delivery of the helmet was fine. better than jejames who dont tell you its out of stock until you ring up asking where it is!

tiddlywinks and dominoes

maltesers on traditional wooden traps work well for us (and a good reason to open/finish off the rest of the box…)

we have a cheap halfords one from their sale, does hum a bit but fine for our camper van

saracen ariel x £899.99 here

will give you a bit less travel thats all. a friend uses a 200×50 float with no issues

i’m in – just got my email this morning and fully entered with a mate. first time for the 3 peaks in my first year of riding cx looking forward to it on my jake the snake i’ve just built up to replace my ss cross check for cx and road duties. worried about punctures though my 35mm speed kings haven’t had the best track record…

i’ll have one if any left for my new cranks :) will mail you, cheers!

thanks for the info guys, worth bearing in mind. cheers

looks good. can i ask how much rohloff charged to convert the non-disc to disc hub? just i’m thinking of getting a rohloff too and will open up more options to buy a non-disc hub if its not too steep. cheers

that’s really bad – i’ve had frames done for £40 each all in before which came back as good as new (except for the dings… :oops: )

if you decide against it i’d be interested in buying the rohloff – email in profile if you do

our garden was full of it when we bought our flat. we did what mangoose did, trampled/crushed it and then nuked it with triple doses of glyphosate and other random chemicals people suggested. killed the top growth then we dug the whole garden out to around a foot deep removing ANY roots or bits of roots we found. we pulled out about 3 black bin liners of roots!!! 8O sounds full on but it wasn’t too bad as at its not too big and at the same time we were taking out tree stumps/old shrubs/old air raid shelter wall etc and needed to get the levels down anyway as it was about a foot higher than the path/house floor level

we’ve since turfed it and got borders around it with new plants/veg’s and trees which are all doing fine. however the marestail is still coming back, bit by bit. luckily not in the lawn itself just in the borders – we just pull it out and dig the root up every time we find some. after speaking to plenty of gardeners/doing research its apparent it’ll never go away, and not helped by the fact next door neighbours garden is a jungle of marestail so without killing theirs off no doubt we’ll never get rid of the epicentre of the problem (theirs is a rented house – occupier and landlord have no interest in sorting it or even letting us take care of it!)

i’ve heard a good way of getting totally rid of it is to cover the affected area in black tarp to cut out sunlight for a year or so – obviously not great for kids/bbq’s. the main thing with it is any part of the root will grow into a full plant, and it survives composting too so important to dig it all out and burn/plastic bag and bin it

had a look/go on the caadx 105 and really like it, the 56cm was spot on for me at 6foot. it has rack/guard bikes so figured it would be great for commuting, cx races and general road riding (i’m not really a roadie). good looking frame/fork combo as well – the tyres look pretty bad though. in the end i couldn’t really afford the £1000 price tag so i’m building up a 2nd hand jake the snake in the meantime

we keep our bikes on the rack all the time when we’re away in ours, not had any issues but i lock them up with big kryptonite locks and use a bike cover also

as for security we locked the keys in ours a few weekends ago in ambleside, the local recovery bloke popped the lock in a few mins with a bit of wire… 8O

did that to my heckler about 5 years ago, got a few more to go with it now and it’s still going strong. wouldn’t worry about it but worth checking for cracks to keep peace of mind