£9K – qualification and adventure all in one :D

Cocking about in the woods.

Spermbirds – Americans are cool :wink:

My first proper board –

Madrid flypaper, deathbox dodo wheels and tracker trucks….I still have my skaterags t-shirt :D

I couldn’t feel any play in the headset, but as you say worth a closer look before taking the fork apart.

TJ, Steve – Thanks, that makes sense, the lock-out seemed to fix itself after I had righted the bike and moved the lock-out and floodgate dials around a few times.

The noise is deffinately not the wheel, I took that out, and held all the cables etc to make sure nothing was knocking.

With the wheel out if I tap the fork leg (the side with the lockout) I get the same noise.

Deviant – You dont need to do the road climb to get to ceasars camp, have a look on a map to the west there is a bridleway that cuts through the old park, it’s still uphill, but more pleasant than the road :-)

You should be able to put together a decent loop around Devils punchbowl, Gibbet Hill and Wagnors Wells and Ludshot Common.

Now you know where you are going at Aston Hill I’d say head back up there again on your own and spend the whole session on the red run, riding it over and over until you are more confident, focus on getting just one section right at a time.

I’ve only just started riding downhill myself, Rogate is local to me, the first time I went I hated it, felt just too hard, but I forced myself to complete 10 runs down one track in that first afternoon. There were sections I couldn’t ride (still on this one track), but I just built up to them over the following weeks.

Tuition definately helps. I had a session with jedi about 18 months ago, well before I thought about DH. Everything he taught me can be applied to DH.

I’ve got pre-built hope hoops on two of my bikes, on both occasions I brought them from the local bike shop. That way I have the backup of the shop if something goes wrong. They come with spare spokes (the pro3s are straight pull so I guess might be harder to get hold of if I get through the 2 spares supplied).

I went into the shop with the intention of getting a wheel built, but the guy said for what I was after they were the best value, and he had them ready to go there and then.

Endura Humvees have two zipped main pockets, and a small zipped pocket lower down on the top of the thigh.

Have you tried sealskin waterproof socks? That way you get to keep the grippy 5:10s.

Mountain Trax is actually my favourite in the area, and I’ve not found them to be that expensive for what I was buying, but it is a car drive out of town.

Andy, not sure where you are based, but there is a Cycling For All scheme just outside Farnham, Surrey. I believe they have specially adapted trikes, tandems etc. that you can hire to take around the forest – Alice Holt

How about this – Big Agnes Copper Spur.

Light, tall enough to sit up in and two doors. A freind has one and really rates it.

I had the same problem as Speakert2Animals, I was also swapping between Hopes and LX. I had to re-sync the gears and move the break callipers when I swapped over, real PITA.

Loving this –

What about kenda small block 8s? They are really fast rolling and offer more grip than you would think. I have to confess that I do swap them for highrollers in the winter.

Is that not sort of missing some of the main reasons for camping?

I dont see it that way, for me the point of camping is to spend time outdoors with the family, with a darkend bedroom the little one might sleep all the way through to 6:30am, rather than 4:30am, still plenty of time to enjoy the day.

We’ve just ordered a Kampa Frinton 4, the main selling point for us was their sleeptite bedrooms which are almost blackout rooms, and the side entrance where you can get out of wet shoes/coats before getting in the main living area.

I agree with drdjpower, felt a bit odd buying a big tent after the usual backpacking ones, but should be better for family camping trips that the laser :-)

If you can ignore the rather cr@p name these work really well –

i-Stubble

Go down to 0.4mm and have two charging modes, five minutes charge gives you enough for a shave, 90 minutes charge gives you 45 minutes use.

Already been done apparently, but I’m not sure if I believed the guy that told me. There were lots of CCTV cameras when we walked through it a couple of weeks back, so expect someone to be waiting at the other end for you :wink:

Try this

Wendover is the nearest station, and you could ride offroad most the way there. If you’re not into Downhill, then you’d probably want to combine it with some of the other local hills and natural trails

East Street cycles in Farnham are really good, not been in since I moved away, but they were always really helpful.

PSA – Just spotted this deal on Rab Bivvy Bags on Cotswold Outdoors –

£70 of Alpine and £25 off Storm bivvy bags

I’ve used the “look what we found” meals before, and added a packet of that ready to steam rice that you can get in most supermarkets. For the WRT I think I’m going to go for a dehydrated meal in the evening…I’m hoping I’ll be able to top up my water at some point.

I got one the over day, I can fit my tarp, bivvy bag, guy lines and pegs in it pretty easily. Also had a thermarest prolite strapped onto the back of it. (folded in half and roled its about the same width as the saddlebag).

I was out around Wendover yesterday and the majority of the tracks we rode were dry and fast with the odd muddy spot, I suspect Aston hill side would still be pretty damp though.

I’m not sure how to fix the underlying problem, but if you select tools/compatibility view from the menu you should be able to view it in IE6 format. You have the option of then adding the site to a list of sites that should always open with compatibility view.

I'm not saying we should exclude or discourage anyone, just not encourage them ;-)

Yeah probably a bit NIMBY, I do agree with a lot of the stuff on the Trailwatch constitution page, and wouldnt want to really sign a petition against a group of volunteers who are trying to improve riding in their area, its just the "Increase Awareness" bit that I dont agree with –

A.To maintain a complete map of the existing network derived from the current RoW map
B.Make available, trail guides and practical recommendations suitable for varying levels of cycle user
C.Explore and document, new and innovative trail routes

Not really to be honest, although I do live close by and ride in that area. My concern is why do we always have to keep encouraging people to ride on an already over populated trail network? Publishing trail names and creating new maps etc causes additional traffic on the trails, leads to errosion and conflict with other users, just look at swinley and surrey hills, and now even the areas over towards Aldershot.

Can I sign a petition against Hampshire trail watch? There are plenty of bridleways and track out there, if you cant be bothered to pick up an OS map and go exploring then stay at home, or drive to one of the nicely signposted trail centers in less populated areas of the country.

All you need to know Here[/url]

Remove the rubber O ring and it should slip in a lot easier, I've done this on two bikes and it works a treat.

Cheers, I'll give one of those ritchy headsets a go.

As you say excellent cheap hardtail, rebuilding as a winter bike.

The rock looks very similar, out of interest what does the inside of the headtube looklike? The guy in the shop was expecting a totaly smooth finish with well defined lip inside for the headset to sit against. I cant see how the headset I fitted would have knurlled the inside as it was lower than the bearing cups would sit. My though was it was a cheap frame and so the finish wouldnt have been great.

Right, the floodgate only has an affect if the compression is locked-out.

I've just got a set of revs myself and been playing around with the setup, running them with compression locked out and a very light floodgate (4 clicks from -). Seems to work pretty well.

I thought the idea was to lockout the compression and use the floodgate to control low speed bump threshold?