If you use ones that are about 5mm longer than the normal ones then you reduce the risk of stripping the threads.

D729 on Hope Pro 2 if your 26″, if not then I think Sun MTX 33’s come in 24″.

There are lots of ‘F1’ hotels across france that are well priced and easy to find one, so I’d just drive untill you want to stop, then hope you find one in the next 30 miles, which is pritty likely on the main roads. I normally just park up and sleep in the car, but its usually just me.

Last time I drove through the mountains north of Geneva and slept in a layby and woke up to this view:

Wow thats a quick sale! I’ve just brought my first house, which was originally on the market for 270k, and I paid 230k. I couldn’t find any decent bargains in London, which sucks for buying houses.

I like the way they say its held on wiht ‘Strong tape’ … duct tape saves the day once again!

Your not gaining any more range, just getting closer gears surely.

http://www.mbaction.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=6C606132AD374521BC58D4CBDB82F733&nm=Main+All+Modules&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=A8AF09514B0E4EC89458F835AE188A54

The Santa Cruz Syndicate have been using Sram 10 speed for dh.

4gb Trancend Class 6 cards are £7 or 8gb are £12.50 from 7dayshop.com posted, so I’d by a couple of these. 16gbs is a hell of a lot of photos to loose if a card corrupts so I wouldn’t go any larger.

I use the hacksaw method. I put 2 thin bits of ali sheet on the disc surface to make sure you dont cut that and then I use a screwdrive with mole grips clamped on them so you can push down lots with one hand and turn them with the other.

I’m not jelous … much

Numb due to coldness or numb due to vibration? How big are you hands and what grips are you using?

Remember to line up the writing on your headset with you frame if you fussy before you press it in. To fit the crown race if its not spilt then I tape it on with a hammer and big screwdriver, jsut make sure you not hammering against the bearing surface.

I’d start with some 685mm Eastons and then cut them down if her elbows stick out too much and her weight is too far forward. It depends on the frame length, but I feel wider bars are better unless your being stretched out too much. My sister is 5’4″ and uses them on her Hustler and loves them.

They are horribly compressed on here, they are much sharper on my pc. I find photobucket sometimes compresses stuff ok, other times its rubbish. Flikr is much better. But yeah, some of the skys are washed out, which is where compacts are generally poo. I find the only way to not blow out skys is to rely on good sunlight/off camera flash/polariser filter. If you look at my pics at the top (flikr link) you can see how much my photography has progressed :-)

Before I started think more about photography and brought the G9 I used a IXUS 75, which unfortuatly died when I snt it through the washing machine (sad day!). Here are some photos I took last summer in Morzine with it. I think they are all pritty much straight from camera when I did just point and shoot or gave the camera to someone else to point and shoot.

It was a great camera. RIP.

This looks like a bagain:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CANON-iXUS-90-SD790-iS-DIGITAL-VIDEO-CAMERA-4GB-SD_W0QQitemZ300312609078QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_CamerasPhoto_DigitalCameras_DigitalCameras_JN?hash=item300312609078&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1690%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1308%7C301%3A1%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50

Heres a story of mine from last summer in Verbier.

A guide was out riding with a few guests on quite a remote ride that involved riding to the top of Verbier, then dropping down into another valley and getting the train back around. Whilst riding along a remote bit of singletrack they stumbled apon 3 british people (1 man and 2 women). They were looking very worried and didn’t know what to do, as the forth member of their team had fallen off his bike down a gravel spree. They didn’t know the name of the trail they were on, the name of the area or the emergency phone number. The guide and on of his guests started climbing down the mountain at the side of the spree. They eventually found him hooked around a tree. They called a in rescure in with a accurate gps location and local knowedge of the area and the guy was air lifted off the super steep wooded mountian and lived to fight another day (I think). It the time we were having a bbq with the 2 people that run the chalet that the guide belonged to, so we were getting regular phone calls and updates, but it must have taken them about 3 hours to get him off the mountain and carry on. According to gps the guy fell 400 vertical metres! The pictures I saw of him beeing airlifted out where quite horific, he was proper blue and looked dead and all that remained of his full face helmet was the straps!

Moral of the story is:
Riding in the alps is not like riding in the Quantocks so it always helps to have someone who can speak the local language and knows the area. This guy was lucky (they were propbaby the only 2 groups of people to ride along there that day).

Places like the PDS are different as there are so many people and they are prepared for lots of bikers, but some of the smaller places with amazing singletrack can be quite extreme.

Miss Charlie Phillis:

One great thing about using a Canon IXUS is you can use CHDK to hack it. Its a very simple program that you load onto the sd card that alters the cameras software. It is in no way permanant and even Canon say it won’t void your warranty, so its pritty safe. What it allows you to do is get full manual control, raw images and other cool things from a compact camera. This allows you to do really cool stuff if you decide you want to get into photography such as HDR, 2 minute shutter speeds and super fast shutter speeds that even dslrs aern’t capeable of. Some amazng examples can be found on flikr:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=ixus%20chdk&w=all

Verbier with http://www.powderanddust.com

I use a £240 Canon G9, but for biking I find it very very useful to have a decent off camera flash, so I use a Jessops 300AFD flash (£25) and a PT-04 wireless trigger (£15). Carrying around this much isn’t partually compact, but it does get good results. Taking biking photos in woods or poor light either requires a good flash or good panning technique.

If you want something genuinly compact and cheaper the I’d suggest a Canon IXUS. Theres various versions availible at a range of prices but Amazon currently have the 85 IS for £145. Its a simple point and shoot, with image stablising, a decent screen, a good fast lense.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-Digital-IXUS-Compact-Camera/dp/tech-data/B0015ULMTM/ref=de_a_smtd

Heres a few I’ve taken recently:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32306159@N04/sets/72157608868249479/

Whatever you do don’t be fooled into buying teh camera with the most megapixels, more megapixles + small camera = bad.

Take the Nomad to Verbier and stay with http://www.powderanddust.com . Its awesome out there, but is biased towards steep techincal singletrack.

I know the BB I removed from a 2006ish Carrera Kracken ali xc frame was 68mm.

Sh1t the bed that thing takes of quickly! I need one of them for christmas!

I found estate agents very weird, but then I can understand why. I was looking for a house in West London, and I’m a very young looking 20 year old, so non of the estate agents took me seriously, so non of them tried to sell me anything! I think the problem is lots of people browse houses but are not looking to buy urgently, so estate agents have a very hard time working out who is genuine. I have now found a house, which I get on friday (wahooo!) which I got for £230k when it was on the market orignally for £270 but the owners were urgent to sell, so I’m happy!

Ouch! Snappy snappy forks and frame!

Not my pic, taken from Swaussies great photos: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v216/swaussie/

I think this has to tbe the ultimate Verbier bike. Orange Strange, 180mm 66’s, Hope V2’s, DT5.1s on Pro 2s and nice wide bars. Something like this:

I’m not sure whats better, the Dh racing, or the brilliant commentery on freecaster. I love he fact its so random and Rob Warner is a legend! The La Brese track looked awesome and the rain made it interresting and mixed things up bit. I thought Brendon and Hill were gona have it with there brilliant werd line on the mid section but Peaty was awesome!

P.S. Have some lovely Verbier photos :-) Its such a awesome place.

Also Crans Montana is worth a visit and isn’t too far:

Its Verbier, so the Intense will be awesome! If your a good rider then you can ride some amazing steep technical trails where big brakes and a nice tall single crown make life much easier. You hardly have to ride up hill so there is no point riding anything lighter, and the Intense isn’t going to be much harder to carry (there are a few hikes of done in Vebier to get to the best trails). I’ve ridden there mostly on my SC Bullit with 66’s, and when I did ride a Cove Hustler a few times it was horrible as it was so much harder work and killed you arms and legs very quickly.

I agree with Mr Agreeable! I once lent my SC Bullit to a mate and rode his hardtail down one run and it was so so painful it wasn’t even vaguely fun. You need a well built upper body to ride a hardtail well in the PDS!

This is how a proper ‘Hardcore’ hardtail should look:

They are so versatile. I’ve put 120mm forks on mine and lighter wheels and taken it xc racing and its been pritty fast but then as abov I used it for a while as a cliff hucking freeride SS hardtail and it was brilliant at that. Put a decent build on it with 140mm forks and wide handlebars and can’t go wrong. This is how it looked most of its life:

Cove Stiffee … the best!

http://www.powderanddust.com in Verbier are awesome. You need to be pritty good at technical singletrack to get the most out of it, but apart from that its amazing.

Always shoot in raw, but never give ou the Raw files, that way you can always prove you are the owner.

I hit a tree head on on Christmas eve on my DH bike and broke both wrists :-(

My Merlin wheels are sweet, they are the same Pro 2 on Mavic 717 build and have survived all the 4x and dirt jumping abuse I’ve thrown at them. The other option is a set of Hope Hoops with Dt 4.2s, which davehinde cycles were doing for 220.

I’ve got these and they seam fine. I haaven’t tried them off road though, but I think they are the same as alot of genetic carbon rigids. They are cheapish and come it lots of different heights.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/eXotic-Rigid-Carbon-MTB-Bike-Fork-Disc-V-Mounts-44-5_W0QQitemZ140318790535QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_sportsleisure_cycling_bikeparts_SR?hash=item140318790535&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1688%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318%7C301%3A1%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50

Too much travel at full height so the handling will go to pot. You can drop them down to 125mm though, which should be fine, but you’ll be carrying around a bit of excess weight. Find out teh axle to crown height of them, you might find they are still a bit too tall at 125mm andit messes up the handling. Either way its out of the warrnty range, but only just.