Also, did the item come from Amazon, or a reseller?

Amazon. Maybe they’re sending it from the Amazon! :p

Mountain bikes weren’t designed for city use. Have a look at an OS map and you’ll see some pointy things up the coast a bit.

Yea I see your point but I live in a very remote area so often have to resort to online shopping. Not everyone can just pop down the shops to get things. If I drove many miles to the city it would cost a huge amount of money and wouldn’t be great for the environment. OK It’s not everything that’s wrong with the country but maybe I just felt like a rant. I use local shops when I can over supermarkets and such like because I like to support local businesses and they’re more helpful but some things I can’t get locally. By the way I have contacted them and not heard anything and no I’m not going to set up a shop I just want my goods.

It is their fault if they’re using an unreliable delivery service. Delivery companies should employ more staff at this time of year instead of just taking our money and not honoring delivery times. I wouldn’t tell customers at my work that it’s just a busy time of year, we get more people in to deal with demand. It’s everything that’s wrong with this country. As soon as they get your money they don’t care.

Thanks for the suggestions folks. Rich: It’s for shorter local rides, read the post. I’d never pay the kind of money you’re talking about for a jacket anyway. I have a winter jacket which is a hand me down from a mate and cost me nothing. It does the job.

Thanks that looks like just the thing. What are the arms like for length? I have long arms.

EDIT: Just read the review and the arms are long enough in large by the sounds of it.

A black one.

The council don’t seem to realise that throwing a load of loose gravel down a steep hillside that has torrents flowing down it at the slightest hint of rain doesn’t work. Same keeps happening with CC and Wireworks in Copley…

Yes quite. The council did the same near me to a nice techy bit and now it’s getting all washed out. I suggested that in the future they get some upland path specialists to do a proper job with drainage and shit instead of getting some local cowboy builder in with a f***ing big digger trashing the place.

I have the Pig and although I don’t think I have it set up quite right just yet (I think I need a shorter stem) I’m very pleased with it. I have Pikes on it (95-140mm) and despite the slackness of head angle it climbs fairly well. I’ve found it to be in it’s element on very steep or fast technical downhills so it’s over kill for most stuff. It’s got big beefy tyres and downhill rims on it with a 1×10 drivetrain. I’ve found it to be faster and more fun than suspension bikes I’ve ridden downhill. I live in Scotland and tend to save the Pig for the big rocky days out in the mountains as like I said above it’s over kill for most stuff. Around 80% of my riding is done on a 120mm singlespeed. A friend of mine went to the alps recently and said the guides had Blue Pigs.

There’s some nice routes round there. You can go around Loch Venacher in a clockwise direction I think is best. Another nice loop going from Aberfoyle north east alongside Mentieths then west along Loch Venacher then south back to Aberfoyle via Loch Drunkie. Ben Venue is meant to be good but not done that. Ben A’an if you’re a riding god like Joe Barnes:

As dh says that route from Loch Ard forest over to Loch Lomond via Cailness cottage would be a good one and you could come back via Balmaha and route 7. Would be a long one but really nice. The WHW between Cailness and Balmaha is a great ride.

Thanks folks I’ll look at those options. Before i used a really cheap and rubbishy mic that was on my headphones (not great quality but did the job) but with my new headphones I can’t get the recording volume high enough.

I will also be wanting to use it in conjunction with a webcam so want to avoid problems of sound and image being out of time.

Isn’t this the same kind of thing as prodding TJ ’till he popped?

Did he actually pop? Not seen him on here for a while.

I much prefer natural stuff but like the occasional visit to a trail centre because they do have the jumpy bits you can practice on and stuff like ‘Berm Baby Berm’ at Glentress which is so much fun. GT was so rough and eroded in places yesterday that much of it felt like natural trails anyway.

Not sure about the hearing the wings beating bit. That sounds like an old wives tale to me. Maybe if it was very close or it was taking off nearby you could hear the wings. Almost certainly a Raven if it was making croaking cronky type noises though. They are much more common than they used to be.

http://kittenwar.com/

I think trying to remember all that would make my brain fail anyway. I hope the whiskey was good! Just measured everything again so it’ll be the 1″ one I need. Thanks for getting back to me.

You know how if you drop your toast it always lands jam side down and if a cat falls it always lands on it’s feet…….well if you spread jam on a cats back does it levitate?

Thanks for that link Macavity. Orangeboy said (in his deleted post)that the 1″ or 1.1/8″ refers to the steerer rather than the headtube which has confused me somewhat as the pdf seems to show it as the headtube size although it’s not very clear. Can anyone confirm please?

OK so I take it the 1.1/8″ headtube was an industry standard with the threaded headset then?

Ah ok didn’t know that thanks. It’s a Muddy Fox MTB age unknown and the forks are Suntours. I was hoping to put my old Bombers in it to continue the retro theme but they won’t fit.

Sell the Soul you’ll get more for it and the Inbred’s just as good anyway.

Yea they came off a Pitch. Do the job nicely though. Thanks folks.

I just take a bloody great big pair of pliers to my Juicy’s when I change the pads it’s the only way.

It seems to be getting increasingly difficult to find anything that is actually fit for purpose these days, especially electrical items. Thank god for recycling that’s all I can say.

Very sorry to hear that. I’m up near Balloch so will look out for it up here too. I see a lot of bikes coming up route 7 out of Glasgow. What colour are the forks?

What about all the Southerners?

I think geometry is more important than suspension. I prefer descending but I got the Blue Pig because it has that steep seat angle of 74.5 and the head angle is really slack at 67.5. The seating position is really comfy for all day rides and going up hills and it descends better than I could have hoped.

Rover- I don’t know the angle but 140mm forks slackened out my Trance a fair bit and you’ll really notice it. I wouldn’t have wanted forks that I couldn’t wind in though so I got Pikes. 140 felt too slack for general riding.

Probably Perthshire or Moray or somewhere round the Cairngorms because it’s ace for cycling, walking wildlife etc, it has it all really. Not Aberdeenshire, been there done that it’s a bit isolated.

Or Cornwall because I have a lot of family there and it’s just as gorgeous although not as good for cycling.

Yea I forgot to mention forks. My Trance came with Recons which I replaced with Pikes which gave me infinitely more confidence and control. The Pikes feel even better on my Pig with the slacker head angle. I wouldn’t go back to QR forks as bolt through are so much stiffer.

I live in Scotland and have come to the conclusion that if you’re going to have full suspension you may as well have shit loads of it or none at all but that’s just me.

My first proper mountain bike was a Trance X which I really liked but ended up selling because I didn’t feel it was right for my needs. I was pushing it very hard and it was great on the smaller bumps but couldn’t cope with really rough stuff at speed. Thing is I’d built a single speed hardtail which covers most of my riding and I got so into hardtails that I replaced the Trance with a Blue Pig which is slacker and descends even better than the Trance did. The pig feels like the ultimate Scottish Mountains machine to me and I have it 1×10 for weight saving and simplicity.

Make of this what you will but if I ever got a full suss again I’d get something slack with loads of travel to really go crazy with on the downs. The Reign for example is meant to be a good climber but far better then the Trance going down. Consider BB height too.

I like the look of those Alpkit Gourdons. I’m a big fan of simplicity. I’m wondering if they might be a bit big or do they reduce down nicely for when you pack less kit? I don’t want everything moving about.

Really? Well it’s been going on for a couple of years now. It goes away for a while then comes back even worse and for longer. I used to ignore it but it became unbearable. Since treatment I can now breath better and no longer get the horrible aching, cramping sensation up my neck and into my head. I have much more mobility in my whole back and no longer feel that my left leg is shorter than my right. I’m just hoping the physio, exercises, changes to posture etc will keep it like this.

I went to my GP today to ask him what he thinks about it and managed to get a referral to a physio. My GP said that he was going to have to sit on the fence about it and stated that there’s no evidence to say chiro works although it may help some individuals. It surprises me a little that there’s no evidence having seen people benefit from chiropractic treatment. He also quickly inspected my back and said he couldn’t feel that anything was wrong and that I should expect to have discomfort in it from time to time. Well discomfort I was getting and big time and I don’t believe I should have to live with it to that degree.

Like my doctor I am also on the fence about it at the moment until I see what the physio is like. Apparently the waiting list is VERY long and I don’t know if I’ll get more than one appointment. I never would have considered going to the chiro if it hadn’t been for the deal and the 4 appointments have definitely made me feel better. What’s the problem with putting it on Group On and like I said to my friends it’s possibly the best £40 I ever spent? There’s no obligation to continue treatment if you don’t want to. If I was well off I might consider further treatment but I don’t have the money.

I can see how chiropractors get a bad reputation but I like to think I’m a good judge of character and the one I went to seemed genuinely concerned for my welfare. I know you’ll all say ‘he just wants your money’ but when was private health care ever cheap? It may be seen as ‘alternative medicine’ but isn’t this how advancements are made? I expect many of the techniques used by the NHS were once seen as Ju Ju magic.

Like I said I’m still on the fence but it seems like the chiro’s are getting a bit of a hard time.

Thanks:)

Thanks for all the feedback everyone this has turned into a good discussion. While the chiro appointments have worked for me so far I certainly have my reservations. Although the chiro has talked about exercises to help my back he hasn’t actually given me any yet. Surely if he’s ‘adjusting’ my back it would be wise for me to be doing exercises to strengthen the back with it in it’s proper position and like others have said surley it’s not just all about the spine but the bits round about it too? So although I’m feeling a benefit I think he is certainly trying to string it out with these 10 minute appointments. I suspect I’ll only be told about the secret exercises if I commit to the ‘care package’ (£300).

I’ll be seeing my doc about it this week to see what he has to say. Apparently one of my neighbours does some kind of Ju Ju magic with backs so I could consider that as well.

OK I’ve done a bit of reading about this now. It seems that chiropractors are more into doing the xrays and realigning the spine through ‘adjustments’ so that the nerves are healthy whereas physios are more into increasing blood flow and encouraging certain exercises to improve the situation. I suppose the chiropractic treatment has worked well for me so far because i’m out of alignment and have had a slightly trapped nerve. Hopefully the doc can give me some good advice on the way forward from here.

Yea well I didn’t go to them just because I saw a groupon deal I’m not that gullible. I’ve heard bad things about groupon too but they do some good stuff cheap. Do the NHS give you an xray and tell you exactly what’s wrong with your back? I know a few people who have been to this chiropractor and it’s worked wonders for them and so far it has for me as well and I didn’t realise how much discomfort I’d been in. But now the £300 doesn’t sound so wonderful. I’ll go and ask my GP what he thinks.

What do the physio’s do with your back? Do they do the adjustments like the chiropractor does because they’ve been working a treat?

I don’t know. I’m not obsessed with graphics and res. As long as the game runs smoothly at medium settings I’ll be happy. I’ve never run BF2 at full settings which hasn’t bothered me but the lag and other issues certainly have. I’m not really sure about spec because so much has changed in the last 5 years since I bought the machine I’m on at the moment. The i5 sounds like a good processor and maybe the GTX 555 or above for graphics?

I wouldn’t have a clue what I was doing to be honest! Maybe I could get someone at work to do it for me. Something like this should do the job I reckon:

http://3xs.scan.co.uk/ShowSystem.asp?SystemID=1346

Thanks Drac. Would you recommend getting a ready built machine or getting all the bits and either have a go at it myself or get a shop to do it?