I used to wear cowboy boots a lot with bootcut levis etc during the garage rock revival of the early 00s (see bands like Jet and the Datsuns for further evidence).

I used to wear Beatle boots a lot during the garage punk and acid rock revival of the 80s (see bands like Chesterfield Kings, Plasticland for further evidence). Anyone wearing cowboys boots would have been pointed in the direction of, I dunno, INXS or something. You gotta ask yourself, would Billy Childish wear cowboy boots? Would The Mummies? No. I still can't get over garage rock.

I've always liked cowboy boots- worn discreetly under good jeans and worn in they can look good.

No they can't. To paraphrase what has been pointed out elsewhere, take them out of their natural environment and a crime against nature is committed. It's like ponchos, Nepalese knitwear or dolphin steaklets.

inbred.

(actually half-seriously: it did bring SS to the masses and, arguably opened up a mass market for nicheness. Not all paradigm shifts are progressive.)

I like cycling in woods. And heathen activities with my lady.

Good news. As others have said, great choice man. May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and may the rain fall softly on your fields.

Cheers TonyL. I quite like the idea of the Alpitude and from what you say it would be spot on.

Hmm.

Alpitude: Tick all the boxes and would be getting the frame only and so white grips/saddle wouldn't detract from my riding skillz 😉
P7: Always fancied an Orange but have only ever had the wrong one for me (E8).

Whyte: The 631 19 looks lovely but would push costs beyond the safety limits of my current budget*

*ie. my missus would have my nads in a sling.

+1 Bomber

The Stooges – TV EyeLoose – these are probably my faves, everything else sounds weak afterwards. Love the live footage from 1970… "This is **** blood!"

Brain Donor – Pagan Dawn

cheers all. celebratory kebabs for tea and a gratuitous drive-by* afterwards 🙂

*of the house!

My head's about to explode. We've just had our 162K offer on something that was on at 180K….
blimey!

Now comes the tricky bit: solicitors etc.

Thanks for all the advice and encouragement.

Hmm, torn now between the alpitude and the p7. i feel a new thread comin on…

made my blood boil. the dick.

You needed more material like this in the original. 4/10

(But yeah, they were taking the piss and would've narked me right off too)

no worries, cheers man.

Well, I've punted my PA on the classifieds. I've not heard from stonemonkey but there's been enough encouragement to get me into action, even if I do have to be patient about it – not my greatest strength!

Yeah, I keep looking at Blue Pigs and wondering how they are for JRA – normal hilly stuff, not necessarily steep. As an all-rounder-ish bike?

Cheers stonemonkey, much appreciated.

Obi's posts are getting very similar to ro's….hmm makes you wonder

..made me wonder too. Mind you, the tinternet is a wonderful, magical place where even imaginary friends can be summoned into existence.

My style of writing represents an opportunity to peer into the abyss of change, too see whether there is anything of substance there to interest you, the reader. Maybe there's isn't, in which case my posts will soon have a response rate of zero.

No, attention doesn't equal interest. I think you may be suffering from deep self-delusion. It is possible that you see yourself as an acerbic outsider casting barbs from on high. Sadly you are more like a bluebottle at a picnic: whilst some may respect your right to life, most are content to try and swat you to stop you vomiting on the food.

But, of late, it's begun to settle into a comfortable middle age, hasn't it?

As opposed to a bitter and lonely mid-life crisis coupled with a desperate search for meaning? However, I don't think you quite got Singletrack 'right'; it still divides its readers (the rock-climbing article was just as divisive as the pedal cars, as samuri's drop of water etc) and it is striving to find new angles on things despite being bound by the expectations of the newstand audience. Which is fairly obvious, I would have thought. That is, of course, if you have ever read the magazine and aren't just lashing out at yet another newly perceived 'target'.

I'd have to sell my PA first so if you could wait I'd be very interested stonemonkey – providing it's an 18" cos that should be spot on for me. My email's in my profile…

cheers, for some reason my missus is pushing me towards a pink 456!

Yep, I was hoping to hear something like that, I did have a Soul but never quite got on with it, i could never quite make it fit; I am hoping to hear a couple of stories about people picking up P7s second hand for ~£200 🙂

Erm….isn't PA a steel frame that can take a 130mm fork?

Yeah but after two years i quite fancy something new.

456…. i am tempted, i've had one and my missus just said, "you loved that… til it got stolen.."

I might have a look at a Sanderson

It used to be a drop.

Was going to go today but I had a dream last night which featured my recently deceased mother telling me not to go for a bike ride which left me a bit freaked out, to be honest. And I only remembered the dream *after* deciding not to go and clear the shed instead. Damn you unconscious mind!!

my view – write about something that interests you and makes you passionate

I agree. If you're surrounded by great source material and nothing has sprung to mind to date then it's possible that it's never going to – it's possible that you've just not got it in you.

It's also often the case that it's not what you write about but how you write about it that's important. It might be useful to look at your writing style and actual published writers (not bloggers and other 'self-published' authors) and think, "Hmm, what makes them so successful and makes me so unpopular?" Because, to be blunt, on the evidence thus far, I can't imagine many people wanting to read what you write and so can't really see any editor being interested.

Heathenwoods – I'm from shelton lock aswel, my parents own the Golden Pheasant!

Ha! I've taken the family the across there a couple of times and tried to eat those huge burgers they do 🙂 I'm basically across teh road, down from the chippie but not for long as we're moving to Belper pretty soon (well, as soon as we get an offer accepted lol).

When my bike got nicked (shed job) I meant to keep an eye on Allenton market, I never did and wish I had.

You could always put up a 'Have you sen my missing bike?' poster in the Mitre!

I'm in Shelton Lock – drive through the lovely Allenton every day so I'll keep my eyes peeled and a pair of Bombers in the car…

Why would be forced to stop? Easy to put it back on while riding.

Because I'm out of shape and take any excuse to stop at the moment? 🙂

Aha… so one would be forced to stop for a rest to put one's helmet back on at the top of climbs. Sounds ace.

go ahead, tell me how it should be done…

It would have helped if you hadn't chosen to promote an uninformed, adverserial and pointlessly argumentative forum persona. Sadly, your appeal for help will probably be responded to with a shrug of the shoulders and the fleeting question, "Why should I help that ignorant gobshite?" If the Lao mtb team want help they need to find themselves a better cheerleader.

I've gotta be honest, the very fiest thing that popped into my head when i saw the pic directly above was…

😆

I'm heading north this week otherwise i'd be up for that. Hopefully there'll be another midweek 'next time'

Quite liking the way the trail is breaking up in parts making it more natural.

Mm. I was thinkin bout that when i was there on Tuesday. Now sure I'd say it felt 'natural' but it does give a particular character to it which made sure you had to think more about what you were riding over – which I guess makes it more like a 'natural' trail after all 🙂

See my boys every weekend. The come first, ride in the week.

FFS man, don't start this off, ro'll be here soon telling us we're mugs for not using Suntour.

Shimano now, btw, once was SRAM for the top-end gripshifters but have now grown accustomed to flicky shifters. Still have some v.v.light 8speed grippies in the shed, iirc…

I imagined somewhere similar to t-m-m's pictures during winter… I even imagined my biked being there but the imaginary trails are hidden by the simulacral snow…

WHere did we go wrong???

EDIT – there were some guys working after the (downhill) stepped switchback and we had to divert straight down the hill – they said it was only a small diversion though…

I'm guessing it was there as you cross the rail/road straight after that and enjoy the first of the switchback climbs. The section over the road is the Monkey proper and is the fun bit, imo 🙂

i shall style myself as the black swan of this forum.

You can style yourself how you like but the general effect is more…

Virgin? Ours ran painfully slowly a week either side of the election and performed pretty much as you describe. I ran all the usual malware tests which all came up blank, talked to Virgin and they provided me with vague clouds of words. It's all normal again now.

EDIT: Video loads fine here. Nice looking place, a bit iffy for a Sunday afternoon stroll.

get back to daydreaming about lives you'll never lead; experiences you'll never touch.

lol. Yeah, because one day I too wish to sound like a sanctimonious gap year student. Don't worry mate, mummy's probably got a gold star all ready for her little soldier.

The sun's out and I'm off up the Pentlands.

Don't forget to swap out your blood before you set off 😉

Could you get any more boring…?

Just for you ro…

Dual-approach solution based on the fact that Italians and Spaniards are fed EPO in their bottles from birth whilst the Belgians are too smashed to ride much these days (apart from 'cross and you'd have to be out of your gourd to consider that)…

Self-elected 'Clean' and 'Enhanced' pools decided at start of season. Clean group tested on a weekly basis whilst training and daily during 1 day/stage races, all of them, no random selection. 'Enhanced' pool never tested but are given lively dose of randomly selected hallucinogen every three days (on the line on race days). Oh for the simple joys of watching Contador* or Boonen* talking to the trees…

*totally selected at random and in no way at all intended to imply that they have gorilla's piss blood transfusions