Where are you travelling from??

Derby – I can change at Tamworth for Rugeley or Birmingham New Street for Hednesford. I’d much rather change at Tamworth and it also takes 25mins less even if Hednesford sounds like a better starting point

Just thought:it will be a case of getting off the train at Rugeley and spinning along to Birches Valley won’t it?

lol@scruff.

It all sounds good, cheers folks. Looking forward to it a lot now 🙂

if your free on weekends Sunday rides at 9.30md

That’s the thing – Two of my children are only with us on weekends and that’s always going to come first so I have to grab midweek rides when I think I won’t be missed at work 🙂

Yeah, you do get itv 4 with virgin; eurosport too (although that might not be on the basic package).

Heh, the interview’s on a Wednesday and I want a mini day out the day after to spin off any leftover stress and so on. And, hopefully, to celebrate!

But thanks anyway 🙂

Cheers neils & john: mooching sounds ideal. I’ve got an interview the day before so I’m looking to do a bit of head clearing time – wouldn’t be much fun to be around, especially not for anyone kind enough to find the time to show me ‘their’ trails! But yeah, plenty of mooching time sounds good 🙂

Uh, I’m lank haired, listen to heavy metal and always tidy my crap – and other people’s crap up but, yeah, that aside it’s annoying when selfish **** don’t stop and think, “uh, hang on, other people might want to enjoy this place we’ve just been having fun in.”

I always thought Jan (drugs aside) was a very proud, tough but fair minded competitor, I think your view is somewhat revisionist to say the least. Jan or Lance, I know who I would rather share a beer with and it aint that ****tish texan.

Uhh, you misunderstand. I saw that as a *good thing*. I would gladly buy Jan a beer or two.

I miss Jan Ullrich. The pies, the beer, the beer, the schnitzel, the crazy plummeting weight as he remembered he actually had to race in the Summer, the amphetamines, the German nightclubs, the fake myspace, the hatred/jealousy of Lance that poured out in every bead of sweat – I’ve nothing against Lance it’s simply that Jan provided the pathos and the bathos of many relatively recent years.

I just added some M5 threads using a nut.

‘Just’! I’d just like to say that I found this stage a bit of a bastard. Well a big bit of a bastard. At 11p each I don’t mind redoing ’em.

And can i get three cheers for Charlie Kelly and all the guys up on Pine Mountain back in the day?

I think ergon deserve some credit too.

If eggbanjo hadn’t ordered them this would *never* have happened. Hats off to eggbanjo.

Uhhh…. key phrase here….

five mile singletrack descent

. I think my mind’s made up.

And I’ll try once more…

EDIT: Just found this link which recommends the route but with Torridon/Annat as a starting point; it links to a now defunct slideshow on K.Wilson’s site and seems to imply that it’s a route in his book.

All I’ve got to do is find a copy of the book – hen’s teeth and rocking horse shit spring to mind 🙂

Aha! And now this..

🙁 I know cheap laughs are, well, cheap but she gave us so many.

As per TJ’s advice: *bump*

Syringes arrived today; now for everything else. Ace help, thank you 🙂

Well, I’m pleased for sx-xc. Nice one.

The bastards that the forks, crankset and wheelage? Not so pleased.

CHeers. I’m not sure if it is in a book; I’ve ridden in the wilds before but even so I’ve made sure that the route touches civilization at the halfway point.

Yeah, I am a little concerned about the reality of the dotted lines 🙂 But I’m okay about the carries – the pay off seems to be an insanely long descent down into Annat. But as you say, *if* it’s a viable track.

Thanks for the suggestions; I think I might pick up the Kenny Wilson simply as route porn whether I use it or not 🙂

So… is that a no?

As MrSalmon said, it’s all in the timing. I think it’s c.2-3months* in advance that the really cheap stuff is available. I’ve got tickets from Derby to London (and back) for me and the mrs for £40 for both of us. It did involve working out when the tickets would be released for sale* and marking it down on the calendar tho’.

EDIT: *on a Saturday, 11-12 weeks ahead of travel.

Coil – Time Machines (I’m holding onto my hat; it’s quite… um…)

I’m still lolling at druidh.

I’m not 100% sure why you’d want to make things look like models but if that’s your bag then it seems to work just fine.

O M G!!

The False Widow is one of 12 arachnid species known to bite humans in the UK.

I really, really hope that my mrs doesn’t discover the fact that there are 12 species of biting spiders in the UK. She’d be bloody uncomfortable if she thought there were 12 individual biting spiders.

(Hope the itching is all that dies down. Camomile lotion?)

Pastey Howler

Both 853.

Sadly both overshadowed but very good?

In all honesty, I found the ‘Howler’ a bit, um, neutral. There was nothing inherently bad about it and I enjoyed the rides I had on it but it never quite made me think, yes! This rocks my world! But then again I am one of the very small number who could never get a decent ‘fit’ on a Soul so it might just have been me.

whipper snappers

or even XC whippet snappers? 🙂

Uhhh….

Cut-down-steerers?
Sprockets? (If they were a bit younger i guess?)
Those-difficult-gears?
Adolescent crankers?

At this minute?
Led Zeppelin – II (side 1)

lined up next?
Sylvester Anfang II – s/t

and after that?
Agitation Free – 2nd

I’ve had 4 inbreds (1 ss, 2 geared, 1 456), cotic soul, pastey howler, prince albert and a rock lobster (but that doesn’t really count cos i seem to remember it a 1″ stem) and a couple of others in the early 90s.

If I had to choose now? For, “a new bike to throw around cannock chase”? PA or 456.

It’s like The Sound of Music* song, ‘Climb every mountain’ but on bikes.

*It might not be but logic suggests it must be.

Probably somewhere in here

This is handy[/url] or there’s the Cheviots not far up the road. And then there’s the Simonside area.

I’ve not lived up that way for ages and only take a bike out up there once in a while so hopefully someone else’ll be along soon to give you some actual routes that don’t rely on a failing memory.

Might as well use DOT 5.1 – its not much more and better.

And it’d be okay in Avid 3s? The documentation on the SRAM website advises DOT 4 but then again they’re also pushing the Avid Bleed Kit so I’m all ears if 5.1 is fine as a substitute. Am i right that it doesn’t heat up* as quickly as 4?

*Might not the right term but you know what i mean.

Lol. Good stuff thanks – I’d just sat back to down to type, “Uh, where can i find the syringes?” 🙂

Dot 4 oil? Motorbike/car spares shop?

EDIT: Just found dot 4 brake fluid oil. 500ml for £2.39 online so i guess my local auto spares shop should be similar.

Brilliant. Thanks.

According to various things we’ve read you should view your toddler’s diet collectively for the week as opposed to each day as it will all even out over the course of the week. They’re a bit like hamsters and store up their food for when they need it. They have some good days and some bad days. Also, at the moment, the heat will zap their appetite.

If there are a few things she likes then try and ‘enhance’ it with healthier stuff.

Ours (20mths) sounds just like yours and it is, on the whole, pretty normal so don’t freak out. We even watched her devouring a roast dinner complete with seconds of broccoli when, in the past, she’s refused the exact same platter.

Thanks everyone. I’ll let my folks know the number and remind them not to buy TVs they don’t need 🙂

Since his tragic death the other day I’ve been listening to a lot of Sky ‘Sunlight’ Saxon – in The Seeds and Ya Ho Wha 13 as well as one or two other bits and pieces.

Recent stuff (which, as time passes at a more leisurely pace means last two years to me):
Sunn o))) – Monoliths and Dimensions
Wolves in the Throne Room – Black Cascade
Causa Sui – Free Ride
Sunn o))) – Domkirke
Electric Wizard – Witchcult Today
Æthenor – Faking Gold and Murder
Mono – Hymn to the Immortal Wind
Sunburned Hand of the Man – Fire Escape
Earthling Society – Tears of Andromeda
Heavy Water Experiments – s/t
Nadja – Radiance of Shadows
Eat Static – Back to Earth
Spectrum Meets Captain Memphis – Indian Giver
Orthodox – Amanecer en Puerta Oscura
Kayno Yesno Slonce – Elohim Neva Senzu
Julian Cope – Ya Gotta Problem With Me
Brain Donor – Wasted Fuzz Excessive
Current 93 – Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain
Urthona – “I Refute It Thus”
Sylvester Anfang II – s/t
Dungen – 4
Nadja – Desire in Uneasiness
Brian Jonestown Massacre – My Bloody Underground
Dungen – Tio Bitar

So, a lot of doom/psych etc.

Of the older stuff:
Krautrock (Ash Ra Tempel, Popol Vuh, Agitation Free, Amon Duul, Amon Duul II, Can, Neu!, Faust, Cluster, Cosmic Jokers, Kraftwerk etc)
Japrock (Flower Travellin Band, Les Rallizes Denudes, Speed, Glue & Shinki, etc)
Modern Japrock (High Rise, Marble Sheep, Acid Mothers Temple, Boris, etc)
Anarcho punk (Crass, Subhumans, Amebix, Icons of Filth, Conflict)
Older electronica (Silver Apples, Suicide, etc)
70s rock (Hawkwind, Sabbath, Zeppelin, The Way We Live/Tractor, Sir Lord Baltimore, etc)
Folk/Neo-folk (Incredible String Band, United Bible Studies, Charalambides, Comus, Sharron Kraus, Iditarod, Magickal Folk of the Faraway Tree, etc)
And psychedelia from across the ages (13th Floor Elevators, Dead Meadow, Plasticland, Liquid Visions, Mad River, Blue Cheer, OPen Mind, Bevis Frond, Abunai!, Walkingseeds, etc, etc ad infinitum)

and Julian Cope.

Well, you did ask.