Thanks, loads of helpful advice and stuff to think about.

@tjagain. That’s probably the crux of it, but when you’re deep in ‘it’ it feels hard to unravel the real motivation.

Would recommend Burls. Justin Burl does the design and then the frames are made in Russia. I got a titanium disc only di2 road frame custom made and he was very knowledgeable, quick to respond to my questions and the price was good (relative to the alternatives). It was a bonkers gift for my wife, but I’d get another in a shot if I could afford it!

Nice one, thanks. New courier bag ordered.

It’s a boring stock answer but a secondhand islabike will hold its value if you helitape it and look after it. I’ve never lost more than 10% on the ones I’ve bought for my son (bought secondhand, sold 12-18 months later).

I’ve spent ages typing a long and carefully worded answer. Then deleted it as all I really want to say is…

Sad. Sigh.

Brilliant thread. Impressive f-up Nipper, but fantastic recovery. :)

1) Yes you are.

2) No, I played till 18 then (wisely) stopped.

At 8 he’s probably 30 kg max? 30 kg hitting you isn’t too painful, wait till it’s 100kg…

Or maybe I’m being negative?

I’ll second Matterhorn. Not just war-pron, a really good book. Read it, didn’t listen to it though so can’t vouch for the narrator not having an irritating voice!

Hope you’ve got cruise control…

That is fantastic and I’m smiling right now.

I’m also a little sad that I can’t see a window in my life for me to do the same…

I haven’t commuted every day but mine is a similar distance.

A cross bike with guards and a rack is spot on, I use panniers and a dry bag but plan carefully so I don’t end up taking the kitchen sink (although a couple of times I messed up and had two classes worth of exercise books plus some textbooks, that was a bit cheeky!)

The only thing I can add is to plan your food. I have a quick coffee then breakfast at work. A Tupperware of oats, cinnamon, ginger and a chunk of coconut oil (it’s hard at room temp) doesn’t go off if you forget about it but will make a nice brekkie with just boiling water if you pour, stir and leave. I also have a stash of protein powder for quick snacks and to make sure I get enough fluid (often forget to drink on a busy day) and buy lunch at the canteen which means I don’t have to worry about cooking a ‘proper’dinner.

Single leg deadlift with a kettle bell or dumbbell is also really good and helps with balance too. Also a good way to learn how to activate your Glute muscles. Google will show you how.

I’ve got two:

1) I arrived a day early to the start of my first year at university. Embarrassing as I had made a big fuss of being grown up enough to sort my own travel there by bus, clearly I wasn’t. Extra humiliation points as the accommodation wasn’t unlocked and I had to get what seemed like half the entire university housing staff out of the office to sort the keys out.

2) whilst at Uni I used to occasionally do early morning swim training. It started at 6am and like most students I was crap at getting out of bed. One night I went out on the beers after swearing I’d be there the next morning. Cue paranoid nights sleep. At the appointed time I got up, had a quick breakfast, jumped on my bike and pedalled the 2 miles to the pool. I made the following assumptions on the way: 1) the clock on the huge clock tower has broken, it strangely read 2:50, not 5:50. 2) the student bars must have had a special night on as people were still coming home at 5:50 when normally they would have been kicked out around 3 am. 3) it was dark, in the summer it’s normally light at 5.50 and 4) my watch was also broken.

In retrospect I’m amazed I didn’t twig.

To be fair though, once the penny dropped (I stood outside the pool for 10 min waiting for everyone to turn up) I went home, got back into bed then got up again at the proper time. I was a bit tired though.

+1 for Bill Bryson. An excellent science book, lots of topics covered in enough detail to be really interesting, but not so much detail that any one aspect becomes dull.

This is a great thread, I’m only glad my tale of woe isn’t anywhere near as impressive, but definitely as stupid. Back in the days when we all had front mechs I was struggling to shift down from the big ring. Being a thinker I decided I’d give it a nudge with my finger, while riding up a steep hill. Cue finger trapped between chain and big ring. After half a revolution I ground to a halt, faced with the choice of pedalling forwards or backwards to get the finger back out.

Lots of blood at the time, but not real scar weirdly.

Hautbois centre is nice. Quiet and very clean, it’s a centre run by the Guides (Girl) so very ‘positive’. Not near the sea though…

PS it’s pronounceded Hobbis.

I had a similar situation for my son’s bike (there was a recent thread on kids 24″bikes).

I got a pair of 26″ 100mm Reba’s from the classifieds here and got an 80mm airshaft from TF tuned. Serviced them myself (first time I’d taken forks apart, a good learning experience) and all is good.

The only issue is small bump sensitivity, even with low pressures they are still too stiff over repeated small bumps.

Good luck, email me if do something similar and have questions about the servicing and fitting the airshaft.

Lots of good ideas but I’d add that a sticker reward chart really works for us. ‘2 pages of your maths book (bought from Amazon, crucially not too hard and we do it together) and you get a sticker’. 50 stickers earnt some 661 gloves.

Don’t get me wrong, it was still often a bit of a fight, but some days he’d be in the mood to sit down and smash out 5 stickers-worth.

Good luck!

If anyone’s interested I have a 24″ Specialised FSR, v brakes on the rear. 24″ suspension fork + headset. Seat collar and seat post. I got it before deciding I wanted front and rear discs and a hard tail.

Email (in profile) if interested,just rather a nipper was riding it than it being in the loft.

Very nice :)

Does anyone know of a similar site that has a lot more examples? It would be a great assignment for my maths students to interpret a graph that they found interesting (while the polygraph ones are great there isn’t enough of a range of topics to grab the whole classes interest).

If we’re doing photos…

Here’s a crap photo, but you get the idea. Was a the top of the Borsat lift in Tignes/Val D’isere.

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Better photo, but not really of bike, more of gratuitous Mt Blanc shot.

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Hmmm, struggling to get non-thumbnails. Bugger…

@beerback. I tried with some Stans24″ rim strips but cracked after 30 min of buggering around with my homemade ghetto compressor bottle-thing. The rim height is really high so the tyre was really loose. I guess i could try lots of layers of yellow tape? Do you think that’d do the job?

@johnski15 An outdoors place in Scotland was selling their fleet off secondhand via Pink bike. I bought it months ago, hid it in the loft from the nipper and did it up with forum parts slow-time.

Poor little sod had to earn 100 stickers (jobs, homework and general good behaviour) to get his hands on it. Took him ages, even with me trying to give them to him so he had it in time for our summer holiday to Bourg St M!

The Core 24 frame I have is probably 2015. The only negative is the higher BB compared to an Isla or a Cube. It’s come up pretty light though.

Really nice. I’ve done something similar for my 6 yr old son’s bike – based on a Genesis Core 24 frame.

I didn’t go for tubeless rims, but wish I had. For his weight he has about 5 psi in the tyres to get any give, but that means he get snakebites when he charges through any rocks :roll:

I did go for suspension though (26″ Rebas shortened to 80mm), mainly for the Gnarr/smile factor… the fact that he wants to ride it makes it all worth it so I’m well behind your paint/sticker choices!

It’s made a huge difference to his riding compared to his Bienn 20″ Islabike and I can honestly say the best rides I’ve ever had have been with him over the last couple of months in the FoD and the Alps.

Nice work – enjoy :)

I did it about 20 years ago, got up early and was first on the trail. Walked fast for the first hour to get ahead of most people then pretty much had it to myself.

For water I took a camelbak and a filter (it was the height of summer and red hot).

I’d recommend it, had my sandwiches at the top… Which was amazing. Enjoy :)

PS. If you’re scared if heights the descent on the section in the picture above is a bit cheeky. Not dangerous IMO but if you’re not used to that type of thing there is a real sense of exposure.

Spare room bed made up, on the nights I’m snoring after the first wake up one of us moves.

I think you could, but what would put me off is (as others have mentioned) the injury potential.

I wouldn’t really run much, maybe the odd 5km, but I would walk a hell of a lot… As many miles as you have time to fit in.

Good luck, it’ll be a great pub story!

If you want to give foam ones another go, try rolling them as suggested already then twisting them to sort of ‘wind them up’ and pulling your earlobe down as you screw them in. Works for me!

I’m wearing mine right now… And I wear Crocs too. Either I’m unfathomably sad (likely) or always too busy to GAS.

Either way, they are comfy!

Brilliant, great thread!

Inspired me to improve our normal ‘Got shping, c u at hm’ ‘Need milk’ ‘Don’t forget to pick up C from sch’ message threads to the next level.

Great thread. That monster gun looks perfect, imagine the expression on the little ‘uns face when you call a battle then pull that out :)

The whole thing is just so very depressing that it’s hard to keep on topic, since there’s so much to be depressed about. Brexit, no PM, no credible Labour leader, Farage embarrassing us and we’re crap at football too.

Further off topic, can I join both the Labour and Tory party so I have a say in both party leader elections?

If you have a receipt Rockshox will replace creaky forks, at least they did for me.

It is irritating and a bit disconcerting, and I’d say half the forks I’ve had in the past 3 years have creaked.

Dredging up more from my memory…

Or down the St Jean du Alpes valley then right over towards Chatel (can’t remember the name though)?

And the Col de Ramaz, just off the Les Gets – Taninges road.

Looking further afield the Col de Colombiere is the other side of Cluses and is worth a climb (a long day from Morzine though).

@Dudie. That mug on the left is great, retina-burning colour.

They are awesome! Our son was in the infant sling from 8 weeks for walks and jogs on the running track (super smooth surface). We got ours second hand from eBay, bought all the bits (jogger wheel, stroller wheels, sling, extra hitch etc) used it a lot for 3 years (almost everyday, all weathers, off road etc) and sold it for the price we got the main module for.

Having it meant we weren’t beholden to the car for trips to the supermarket, park or tots clubs. When he was older we biked and ran miles and miles together.

Anyway back to the OPs post, I’d just get one. No need to try it out. You won’t regret it.

The lowest similarish completed listing on eBay, minus eBay fees, minus a chuck for convenience for you. Minus a chuck for how much you owe them for favours, minus the fact they’ve got it and you don’t need to clean it.

How’s that?

My 6 yr old wears 661 small adult elbow/arm pads. Work a treat and were about £10 of a fellow forumer.

Only skimmed the thread but would agree re pull buoy, when I was learning using one gave me more ‘brain space’ to concentrate on technique and breathing.

I’d also split up swimming into 50’s and 100’s (metres) with 15-30 sec rest between to allow you to recover and focus on your form/technique.

Good luck, it takes years bit it’s worth it. I didn’t learn ‘properly’ till I was 20 and it took me 3-4 years to get good-ish. 18 yrs later I love open long water swimming sessions.

I’d check tethering, I’m on three and can weather after I rung up and asked.