Brilliant read with great pics. Thanks!

£8.50 for a ‘grade 2 on the sides and back, a bit longer on top“. Same description every time, looks the same every time. Perfect.

Great video, thanks.

Phew, my must have list a much shorted than others. With an ex panel van t5 the three for me are 1) power (we remapped from 90 odd to 130 odd, huge difference) 2) electric windows 3) air con.

We don’t have 2 or 3 and it grips me everyday in summer!

I love this thread.

Thanks dc2.0. Will look further into correct crank length and check out Thorns/superstar.

Update on the Alps trip that I asked about in the OP. We found an apartment in Bourg St Maurice and had two excellent weeks, I’d really recommend it as a base for a family/riding holiday.

Obviously everyone is different and wants different stuff but staying in Bourg gave us the best of all worlds, we could get the funicular up to Les Arcs or easily drive to Tignes/Val D’Isere but we were in a town that had a supermarket and access to road rides etc. Both Les Arc and Tignes/Val D’Isere had a good trail system of marked/lift access stuff (the Tignes lift pass was free (!), Les Arcs was 72 euro for the week). The 50m pool in Bourg was lovely and being in the valley there were flat roads/trails for running or easy rides.

Road rides were good, the Cormet de Rosalend was lovely as was the Col De Petit St Bernard and there were lots of other smaller roads on the valley sides, or you could do the climbs up to the main ski resorts (but these had quite a lot of traffic).

Kids wise the green (and some blue) DH trails were great for our 5 1/2 yr old son, just for being able to ride with him in the Alps it made it the best holiday I think I’ve ever had.

Thanks for the tips and advice. If anyone is planning a similar trip I’d be happy to give more detail.

Thanks for the advice and sorry for not responding earlier, I tried to limit online time while on holiday… so update on my earlier post ref problems with the tag.

It worked flawlessly on the way back, I even braved the 30kph lanes (oh the shame if it had failed). The trick was to take it out of its holder and move it 2 cm to the left but still keep in the dotty bit. Now it’s working I wouldn’t be without one for a long French autoroute mission, so much easier.

Thanks again.

Ditto above, on the tunnel we always get the cheapest tickets then aim to arrive roughly at the right time. We sometimes just drive on, sometimes get charged about £30 (it’s always the middle of the night though, not exactly rush hour).

Slightly off topic but I’d recommend an autoroute tag thing (from here[/url]). Mine had some teething troubles on the way down (thread here) but it worked flawlessly on the way back and was well worth it for the zero hassle in the middle of the night.

I’m so pleased to finally be able to contribute to my favorite thread…

French Adventure-Tree says ‘Ahhhhhhh…’

Adventure-Trees friend, Pully-Boy, is pretending to be an elephant.

There’s so much genuine pain on this thread I hardly feel its worth mentioning that the sun (that is coming up over the mountain opposite my holiday apartment in the Alps) is just a bit too bright and I can’t reach my sunglasses without leaving my pain au chocolate.

I have ridden Hutchinson tubless ready with a rimstrip for a few years and they’ve been OK.

Burping only happened with silly low pressures (10 psi) and I never punctured (obviously I’ll have a flurry now).

@boblo,thanks. I guess I’ll just have to send it back when I’m home. Cheers.

Slight topic hijack but relevant. I’ve got a tag for the first time as we drove down to the Alps overnight in a van with keep for windows. I didn’t want to have to keep waking the passenger to get the ticket/pay the fare so ordered a tag. Problem was it was mega unreliable, despite sticking it to the correct part of the screen (in the dotty area where the rear view mirror would be in a car) it only worked about 1/4 of the time… Thank God I didn’t use a Tag only lane.

If it had worked without problem I’d unreservedly say its worth it just for the reduced hassle… But as it is unless it magically foxes itself or some in on here can explain what I’m doing wrong, its going back.

So, experienced Tagerists, what was I doing wrong?

We caught a 4pm train on Friday and were diverted via m2 as m20 was closed. Took about an extra 20 min, but that was eclisped by rubbish roadworks elsewhere on our route. Once we finally got to the terminal we basically drove straight onto a train. As others have said the terminal was like a ghost town. Now in Les arcs shredding the ‘knar (or something like that).

Slightly off topic but if you have smalls (children not underwear) then we had an epiphany on the journey, audio books and headphones. Praise be to the God of narrators… Without the “are we nearly there yet” cries the van was almost too quiet.

I used the Gopro editor for my first effort (https://youtu.be/6r5A8mmUENc) and would agree about being brutal on the editing, if you want to give them an idea of what you did then 2 min is enough. Music helps too. I’ve got zero experience (as I’m sure you can tell from the film) but the Gopro software was pretty straightforward.

Good luck, pop a link on this thread after!

Mackerel & chick pea salad for me. Then an apple to cleanse the palate!

I ran a lot, for a few years, then stopped completely and just rode my bike for a couple of years. When I started running again it took about 3 months to feel any kind of ‘flow’ and about 6 months before I actually felt like I was running properly.

I think a big part of the adjustment is getting used to the type of muscle contractions that dominate in running vs cycling. The eccentric loading is savage in running and until your muscles can cope with that they just don’t work properly… combining that with the strength to hold a technique that makes use of the elastic energy in your tedons (without getting injured) was my eventual key.

In terms of advice, stick at it, don’t rush (you’ll get injured) and it’ll come back. I also wouldn’t think too much about your running technique, it’ll come.

Good luck!

I never have.

Nightmare situation, we had a similar one in our old house… woman was clearly bonkers and was happy with the barking as ‘he’s just scared’ (!).

After much effort with trying to be nice, then not so nice, then council, then police all with no joy the thing that worked was Ibiza Club classics (i.e a full volume, left on when I went for a run, when she complained I said I’d stop when the dog stopped, worked in a week).

You have my sympathy.

Good work :) If you’re enjoying TT’ing I’d definitely get a TT bike (the timetrialling forum is a good place to look and also a great place for help/advice). A TT bike will make a powerful aero position so much easier to hold for a 25 and you’ll start knocking chunks off your new PB.

Congrats again, keep at it. :)

I’d second the DCRainmaker site, very detailed user-focussed reviews. I have a Garmin 310XT and, if it’s any help, would suggest you don’t get one. Downloading it is epically tedious if it plays up (which is does 10% of the time).

Text to columns tool.

EDIT – too slow!

Very late to this OP, sorry. Sounds like you had fun on your first foray off road :)

Since you say you’re already running 8-10 miles on road I’ll save my “take your time building mileage” warning… in fact no I won’t! I loved trail running to the point where I thought the fact it wasn’t on the road would prevent any and all injuries. I was wrong. Take it steady building miles, esp if you get into longer and longer races.

Enjoy! Am jealous (Achilles still healing slowing) :)

ps – don’t be afraid to walk, I thought it wasn’t ‘proper’ if you walk. I was wrong.

Lots of good advice here, to the point that I don’t think I could add anything new… but rather agree with bits that chime with my experience.

1) It’s impossible to get it right all the time.
2) You are trying, you know it’s not quite right, and you want to improve. That’s a hugely positive attitude and puts you in a position where things will slowly improve.
3) I’ve learnt not to judge a 5-yr old. 5 is young! My nipper gets scared at Scooby Doo, but will jump out of a tree, it’s all good.
4) 1-to-1 time is vital, but not in a pressured way. If you spend ages getting a toy/activity that you really think is ace, but he plays with the box… that’s fine, just roll with it and enjoy the moment (after all that’s what your goal is).

Good luck.

ps I work with kids and see lots who have poor relationships with their parents and their parents don’t care, you’re not in that position and should be proud of that.

pps if all else fails for dad-son-fun then find mud, mud is always fun :)

I loved the Wire and didn’t get on with Breaking Bad too.

+ 1 for House of Cards for watching in the evening and enjoying the quality and +1 for Game of Thrones for just watching without thinking (they couldn’t be more different from each other though)

Definitely. No question. What if they went on to kill someone? Or, if your still not sure you did the right thing, what if they went on to kill your son/daughter?

Well done.

What I did last week. Rushing to do a bike-fixing job that didn’t really need to at that instant, but I thought I could fit it into the 5 minutes I had before the school pick-up. Making a complete arse of the threads on the aluminium hub axle, rendering axle useless therefore wheel useless as Planet-X don’t do spares.

It’s that horrible feeling when the penny drops that it’s going to be expensive.

The kitchen floor tiles, which I helped choose and helped lay, are ugly. And the grouting, which I did, is rubbish. And all I can do is dislike it and think about how much it cost (too much) and how much time it took (too much).

However, before it was badly laid ugly tiles, it was carpet. In a kitchen :?:

Dusty trails in dappled sunlight.

The feeling of a completing your ‘to-do’ list with time left to do something you actually want to do before you have to be responsible again.

When my son (5 yrs old) says “Dad, it’s sunny and muddy at the same time, can we shred the gnarr today?” (although i feel guilty allowing him to think it’s normal to talk like that).

This is in danger of turning in a proud-parent-links-to-photo-of-child-riding thread. In which case I’m in! :D

Micro_likes-food pedalling his Cnoc 16 at the local X race this December. He wasn’t quite 5. I can’t compare it to Frog’s I’m afraid but would say that if you did get a Cnoc you wouldn’t regret it. He’s now on a Beinn 20 small, but only because he kept winding the gear out on the Cnoc 16 and almost falling off as his cadence went atomic!

First, you’ll love it (at least I do). It can be brutal hard work, with moments of utter desperation and periods of total knackerness. However those times are totally outweighed by the positives (like taking your 5 yr old nipper mountainbiking on a sunny spring morning, following him down the trail as he whoops & laughs).

Scanned the thread and seen the disagreements over a trailer. For us it was one of the best things we bought. We both ride and it allowed us to get out and do stuff/exercise alone and together without being beholden to the car and all the faff that entailed.

Having said that we live near quiet roads and picked times/routes that were smart. We also covered it with day-glo and lights. We got a Chariot that converted to a jogger, which was helpful for 4am runs when micro-like food was exercising his lungs.

You & your partner will have to decide what risk you’ll accept with different activities.

Good luck :)

ps – If you don’t have one, get a coffee machine. If you have one, get a better one. Oh and also, when you come back from work stop at the end of the road for a minute to collect your thoughts and toughen yourself up, so that when you walk in the door you can pretend to be full of energy and only too happy to ‘take over’!

Keeper works for me. Syncs and all that to different devices. I still flap about forgetting the master password though!

I’ve just got a Planet X Lurcher as a second bike. Happy with the ride, fun and fast-ish. I’d get another if my budget was (relatively) limited.

Yup, just needed to hit it harder while supporting the other side and using a metal hammer and a piece of wood. Axle and bearings came out no problem.

Axle is definitely knackered. Since Planet X don’t have spares I’d say the likelyhood of finding another is pretty slim so it’s either rebuild on a new hub (faff + high likelyhood of needing different spokes) or new wheel. New wheel time I think. :(

Thanks for the advice. Lesson learnt… until the next time! :oops:

OK, thanks bigyinn & mrjmt. :-) I will report back with progress (or lack of!)

We had eggshell in our downstairs bog and utility… it is a bit shiny and I wouldn’t do it again. Having said that it’s not so bad that I can be ar**sd to repaint it.

Thanks Rubber_Buccaneer and bigyinn.

Here’s a photo of the end of the axle. The threaded bits you can see are normally covered by the end caps. At 10 o’clock on the end of the axle you can see where I’ve knackered it by twisting too hard with a 10 mm allen key.

bigyinn – I’ll hit it harder and report back!

No one knows how I could do this? Hit it harder?

Some great help here. Love the toothpaste lesson plan, and the Snapchat screen grab example. I’ll be using them. Cheers.