Chamois cream, when on the turbo, sudocrem as soon as you are off the turbo, you tend to sit more statically when on the turbo as opposed to when you ride normally, plus you sweat a lot more, its a recipe for saddle sores/chafing/general discomfort in the saddle area :)
Echo what someone else said, get used to riding out of the saddle a bit, but do this as a preventative measure, its too late to start thinking about riding out of the saddle when you are already sore.
I know its sad but, I often do 2hr + sessions on the turbo (I have one of the Tacx Fortius Virtual reality trainers, which explains why I can fight of the boredom of riding the turbo more than an hour).
I am not saying that the above recommendation eliminate soreness, but it certainly helps.

Great photos by 5thElefant, but in the last one, why on earth is Aaron Lennon riding a sledge with Dane Bowers ?

High Roller 2.35 60a on the front, Ignitor exception on the back, seems to work well enough,
By the way, has anyone tried the Maxxis Rendez on the back ? It always gets great reviews and yet you hardly ever see anyone riding them ?

Sausage and bacon rolls for me

If it doesnt have to be Scotch, then may I recommend Penderryn, which is a welsh whiskey, its not cheap mind but its a real nice one, for a discerning whisky lover

Rode Llandegla last night in the dark, with some mates. 1700ft up in places, Holy cow it was cold beyond belief. Frozen Camelbak pipes, and bike encruted in a layer of ice, how nice, hope my fork seals etc are ok ! luckily I was in the middle ring when the front mech froze completely solid ! So I managed round in that, If I'd have been big ringing it at the time it froze up then things could have got harder work :)

A white horse walks into a bar. The bartender looks at him and says

"We've got a drink named after you",

the horse replies

"Really?, In that case I'll have a double George"

I have the Easton EA90SLX's and have done a couple of Marmottes and plenty of races on them, they are certainly light enough at 1500 g ish, and have been super relaible, but possible the Shimano carbon laminates are just as strong and lighter and marginally stiffer, but those Easton R4 hubs….wow, smooth as butter :)

Good advice Bomberman, I have been done 3 times now, albeit once was about 3 years ago, but twice this year so far, I doubt that would be classed as a pattern yet, but I will watch it.
Each time the fraud has taken place online, which begs the question as to how they get hold of the three digit security code on the back of the card, which is always required to make an online purchase.

When you say to be aware of motor garages ? by this do you mean petrol stations ? Is this a regular outlet for fraudsters.

I personally would never take vigilanty action, but I would have no moral objection to it, its the very least these scumbags deserve. Especially when the police are so inept.
Maybe I am too old school in my opinions, maybe I am naive or look at things too simplistically, but I cannot see why there is beurocracy that dictates that the law is not interested in catching people who are stealing hard earned money from decent innocent people and then additionally using this to steal high value goods from honest businesses,
but they are very interested and prepared to prosecute a 50 year old woman who puts her seatbelt on 50 yards after leaving her driveway.
I know there are rules and regulations about the whys and wherefores, but it all seems to lack a shred of common sense to me

The mobile phone thing happened to me earlier this year, phones from Vodafone for delivery to my home address. having got onto it double quick I found out what the standard practice is. Dont worry they dont hang around at your home.
In my case and I assume its the same as with all these scams is that when they arrive at the delivery depot, they rang up the depot and said that they wouldnt be available at home to accept the parcel and could they possibly pick up from the depot. Needless to say I managed to inform both Vodafone who in turn informed the DPD delivery depot not to release the phones.
Would you believe that I then informed the police about it, and essentially gave them an credit card fraudster on a plate, by explaining everything that had happened and that all they needed to do was get an officer down to the local DPD depot to arrest whoever collected the phones for involvement in fairly serious credit card fraud. True to form the police said that they couldnt do anything about it based on my information, would not send anyone and would have to let the fraudster turn up at the depot to receive the stolen goods uninhibited, be told that he couldnt have the parcel and allow him to walk out on his merry way without any inconvinience, which is exactly what happened apparently !……..Nice huh ?

No you are not a wuss, I know you'll get the old schoolers saying we only had 42 front chain rings and 19's on the back etc etc. But things move on, people dont get softer, equipment just develops usually for the better in most cases. And if you live in a lumpy area (as I do in North Wales) then 39/23 is too big a gear. You can either get a Compact and run a 11-23 which should give you a usable spread of ratios or just get a 12-27 cassette and run your 53-39 chainset. (The only downside of the 12-27 cassette is being a bit between ratios at the top of the block.
But its no big deal in training. I train with a couple of 1st cats, one is a very quick first cat doing the premier calendar races and a 60kg climbing specialist. When he trains he runs 12-25,

I went last year, As mentioned before you have to pre-book in one of the big tents. Otherwise you'll be just hanging around in the cold doing absolutely nothing, theres no beer outside as I remember. Most of the Germans are just being loud, singing bavarian songs and getting right in the spirit and having a laugh. Most of the Americans are just shell shocked by the whole thing, and most british are very pissed, shouting fairly abusive football chants and just being aggressive W***kers. Its pretty embarrassing to be associated with them and I dont know why the rest of the world puts up with it.

I have a small 2009 zesty pretty damn mint. Only a few months old, wasnt actually looking to sell it on as its a great bike but if the price was right I'd consider it :) its not quite XC enough for an ex roadie like me as a one and only MTB ( its a bit more all mountain/trail bike than XC). Give me a shout if you are vaguely interested

What size are you after ?

Take a load of air out of it and try it for one ride with loads of sag.

Loads of sag meaning more than 25% ?? The top marker on the indicator is 15mm which is approx 25% and the bottom is 19mm approx 33%. For the previous 5 months I was running at about 11mm (which is about 19% sag)Now in its new saggy setting is at 14mm (so just under 25% sag) doubt i'd dare go any softer, I think I'd bottom it out too much.

I'll let you know, how it feels running the proper sag, as opposed to the 5 months I have been running the bike firm

Yep thats pretty much how I do it too. Looking forward to trying tomorrow night for the first time with the pointer actually in the correct zone (all be it right at the edge of the 15mm XC limit) which for some is probably still too stiff, but I am all for trying new stuff. I just love that feelig that the bike is really propping you up, and not the feeling that you have just sat in a bowl of rice pudding, but it could all be an epiphany for me and I may just start to get the most out of the bike that the designers intended people to do :)

A bottle of Vina Sol white wine all to myself, sorry for being a nancy boy but I am an Ex roadie :)

Thats good advice thanks, I will try it out. I always set my bikes up on the firmer side, so I guess its a mental block I need to overcome. Does everyone set the sag up stationary ? Or do you check it when moving (smoothly)

I just measured up again, yep with correct kit on and 120psi in the can I get exactly 14mm sag on a 57mm shock. Guess I should just go and ride the bike at those settings and see how I like it, it just feels really soft at the rear like that, but the sag is right and everything is working fine.

Hi mark,
Yes I use the sag indicator jobby. Maybe its just that I am not use to such a long travel bike. I tried it with full camelbak etc this morning at 120 psi and the sag just sits outside of the sag zone on the top of the XC (15) setting, slightly above it at about 14mm but even this feels really like the bike is sitting far too deep into the travel, and like I would blow through the travel if I rode it hard ! I know that makes no sense but I have been running recently at 125 psi and that sags to about 11mm which is well above the little hatched zone on the indicator, but at this setting I am a good 10mm from ever getting full travel on the shock shaft. Do you reckon I just run too firm all the time.

Hammer case

Its a grim one for sure, I was in shock when I heard the news break, if you could have put 1000 blokes in a room, and single out person who would have never got in trouble, you'd have picked Simon for sure

An old school friend of mine (however I havent seen him for 5 years or so, even though he still lived within a couple of miles of me) was a thoroughly nice and kind, very intelligent and likeable lad. Ended up with a nice partner, was due his first child, nice house in the posh part of town, good job.
However what he also had that not many knew about was some considerable debt and a bird on the side that he had fallen head over heels with. Instead of walking away from his pregnant missus and new baby, and somehow addressing his debt issues, he decided on a rash plan to fake a break in at his own house, and batter his wife to death with a hammer, getting shut of her and claiming life insurance etc.
However he clearly bottled it after the first head blow, she survived as did the baby, he got found out and has just been sentenced to 25 years for attempted murder and attempted child destruction.

Serious lack of rational thought from a guy you'd have unwittingly marked as one of lifes nice guys ! Ending in what could be best described as a life destroying Fudge up of chart topping proportions

Yep regularly, good prices, good service, and a good guy who runs the operation. He is a prominent cyclist road and off road in our area, so is a feet on the ground type supplier. Never had a single issue or complaint. Highly recommended.

I emailed him for some more information after, and he was due to go off work on paternity leave, which is why you proabably arent getting a response. It is a major bike shop so there is others that he has said wil help you out with the same deal. Email me and I will let you have the details.

Chuckle brothers, easy

Sorry I cant help with the accomodation thing, but you wont be short of riding around the area. We ride most Tuesdays, thursdays (night rides) and Sundays, depending on what type of MTBing you are into, trail centre, XC or wilderness riding, we cover pretty much all of it and know the area really well, with us all being Rhyl, Prestatyn, Dyserth lads.. You'd be welcome to join us

Is an advantage a quick rolling tyre, I thought it was similar in its performance to the high roller, which is why I'd dismissed it.

Hi MTBFIX, you should find my Email on my profile to send me details. Cheers

MTBfix what sort of price for a pair of 43's ?

May be better to initially order some 43s then I suspect, I can of course send them back, but it all takes time etc so would like toget it right first time

"In Bruges"

I struggled to make non lock ons stay put in the past, and tried many of the tricks of the trade like hairspray tube cement etc, to no avail. In the end I decided the only sure thing was to put them on dry ! Its a hard work but its possible. I took some advice and put 3 thin cable ties down the grips to give it something to slide on, and it worked well, although there was a bit of grunting etc :) You have to easer the cable ties out slowly in case thay snap though and get stuck under the grip !

I have had a zesty for nearly 6 months now, I would heartily recommend it for fun riding and general stuff, I certainly couldnt imagine myself needing any more bike for what I do. Bear in mind though that most of the reviews I read before I got it said that it was "adequete and ok for riding up" and thats exactly how I'd describe it, It copes with the uphills rather than loves them. It certainly is no whippet up the climbs, It has quite slack angles and puts you way behind the bottom bracket, so you arent going to be able to fly up the hills with the guys on more race orientated bikes, unless you are super super fit. I never rode a Spicy but I guess that would be even slacker and therefore sluggish.
But the payoff is brilliant stability and out and out fun on the descents, so I wouldnt swap my Zesty for anything at the minute

Me = 64 kgs
Bike La-Pierre Zesty
Fox 32 float 140mm forks = 75psi
Fox float R rear shock = 125 psi

Trail and fun riding ride downhill hard but not jumpy or droppy sort of chap !

Other bike upgraded Trek 8000 hardtail Use: Marathon events and XC stuff
RS REBA dual air forks = 90-95 psi (pos and Neg)
Rear = Just really thick lycra short pad (gives me about 50mm of travel :)

Please nooo "Eye of the tiger" ;) tell me its not so ! Thats only a whisker away from Billy Oceans "when the going gets tough" or Tina Turners "simply the best" !
Just kidding, I guess it has to be motivational music, so whatever rocks your boat I guess.
For me, a mixed up of the Prodigy, Faithless, Massive Attack and some hand picked dance stuff works for ok for me. (Not sure why, but I am finding that Chicane track "Poppiholla" strangely uplifting and motivational at the moment)

Store the bladder in the freezer

Didnt pay much attention to the look of the site, although it seems a bit better, bottom line for me is I just bought a Fizik Gobi saddle off the website which was the best part of twenty notes cheaper than nearly everyone else, so I can forgive some minor aesthetic details :)

If its a great bike then who cares

You would soon lose that feeling of exclusivity, if you rode a Stumpjumper FSR like me ! You would be trying hard to find a riding group without at least 3 of them