There was a shred on pb for £150 the other day. It seems to have gone now but they seem to come up regularly second hand.

The voltage jr is 350 and is a good bike, geometry like a mini chameleon and tough. The spesh is tough but a bit longer and less agile. Of your options above, I would go with the spesh but would be tempted to spend the bit more on a Scott or a Kona.

No need to get 24″ specific forks. Just put some normal ones on, they work fine and will last till the next bike.

Kona shred 24 or Scott voltage 24, especially if he is going to ride the more jumpy stuff.

lil shredder prodigy!!

Still thinking it’s quite pricey if you’ve got to travel there. especially surprised about it being £4 for kids, not much of a legacy for local youngsters coming from one of the poorest boroughs in the country.

This is the issue for me. What sort of legacy will be left if you make it too expensive for the people who would benefit most from it?

Compared with Manchester (Free trails and cheaper indoor BMX) it just seems to be aimed at the affluent rather than the local community.

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/long-summer-mtb-gloves-5-jr-id_8057892.html

These are a mega bargain, I bought some for my son in France this summer. They are really good/proper riding gloves and lasted a summer of downhilling with loads of life left in them.

Mountain Biking is a predominately (read almost entirely) an aerobic sport, unless you’re doing Track/DH/4X/BMX weight lifting is going to add very little benefit to your mountain biking, particularly if you’re only riding a few times a week.

That’s a bit of a generalisation. Surely mountain biking will require some downhill riding, some use of the upper body to get over obstacles, some use of the core to manual through stuff and some leg power (from time to time). For all these, just riding will be less effective than resistance training especially if you are only riding a few times a week.

Theoretical Front Room

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007[/url] by ianvincent[/url], on Flickr[/img]

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004[/url] by ianvincent[/url], on Flickr

Downstairs Bog

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001[/url] by ianvincent[/url], on Flickr[/img]

One of the joys of single life :-)

IME the diesel 2.2l frv only gives about 34/5 mpg combined so the “diesels are more efficient” argument is a bit irrelevant. In hindsight the petrol one would have been a better bet, hardly any difference in consumption, cheaper fuel and all the rest.

I always put small saddles on my sons bikes, they give more stand over.

Odyssey bmx ones are dead small yet comfy.

Got an 08 2l diesel. Consumption is a bit crap, rear view is not the best and the windscreen seems to be a magnet for stone chips. Apart from that, its great, mega reliable and well built. 3 seats in the front is great if you have one kid. Older ones seemed to have a pretty tacky interior though.

Prior to buying, I asked an AA patrol guy what he thought of them. He reckoned he hardly ever got called out to Hondas and in his experience the petrol engine was even better than the diesel one.

This here is Jesse Wigman, on his way to 40th overall in the endurance downhill at Fort William, beating about 100 people on assorted hardcore hardtails, big trailbikes, and full downhill bikes. 13 runs…

Exception rather than the rule.

I saw this cute one in the Verdon a few years ago:

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84[/url] by ianvincent[/url], on Flickr

The Star Wars rolling text thing is a proper cliche, everyone will have seen it 100s of times before.

Plain background, big words, simple font, brightly coloured words, no animation and simple transitions. Looks classy and gives no one a headache.

I like blue background/yellow writing.

Much prefer this for something different and fun:

Thought the cut was a bit crap to be honest.

This might make a pretty cool camper conversion:

http://www.mod-sales.com/direct/vehicle/,26,52,/55609/Reynolds_Boughton_.htm

http://www.unicat.com/en/index.php#

this one is a bit of a bargain, 243,000 Euro (new lower price)

http://www.unicat.com/en/info/EX44-MANM4x4-sh.php

Like avoiding all the rocks?

and sticking to tow paths, abandoned railway lines and fire roads :?

But hey once you borrow someone’s real bike you will:

feel like a cheetah unchained,

:roll:

I have a lot of sympathy for the comments by that guy Kris about his son and the lil shredder. I bought my son a bike with front suspension as soon as I could, and he was riding full suspension for DH at 7. The suspension made riding more pleasurable for him thus encouraging him to ride more, it also made harder stuff more accessible and encouraged him to go faster. Suspension has helped his progression (and enjoyment) no end and I am pretty sure he would be a lot worse if I had imposed the “you gotta learn on a rigid ethic” on him.

I agree with bonchance, my son was riding a 20inch till 7ish and he could have gone a bit longer. I would seriously consider just going up the one size.

There were more people in la massana for the wc than for the vuelta. Some weekends at Valnord there was close to 1000 riders apparently.

Race numbers might be down as your average punter would rather ride all weekend rather than pay big bucks for a few runs, uplifts might not be as full because there is a lot more choice of venues to dilute demand. But, there are loads of people riding the local push up venues round here (Yorkshire) and there are a lot more young kids riding as well. So, not dead.

Car Boot sales are good places to find cheap weights. Not many olympic bars/weights but plenty of the smaller stuff.

Depends what you are looking for but, Kenny and O Neal make nice kids shorts.
Kenny Track Shorts

ONeal Element

There’s a difference between “conversational” and “wrong” though, and if people know that they’re using the incorrect form of a word, but do so in the name of being ‘conversational’ they’re even more idiotic than people who correct them!

How do you manage when you are abroad and not 100% fluent in the particular language? Keep quiet or just shout loudly in your perfect English?

Some people might communicate differently to you for all sorts of reasons, to label them as lazy or stupid without the context is equally lazy and stupid (and snobbish).

Makes a change from crappy headcam footage of BPW :-) The kids are ace.

One of my favourite tracks ever (released 93)

We the people arcade 18″

My son is 1.35m, still rides an 18″and its not too small for him yet.

Just book a guide for the day: BPW guides

All these difficult questions will be answered and there is no risk of getting lost.

I thought it was pretty crap. A lot of pretty boring tracks connecting one or two decent bits. Russian roulette with the weather as well, it really sucked when I did it.

The Deux alpes version is better (trails and weather). Free raid classic.

I am guessing the thing is based on the results of this:

The Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT) is one of the world’s largest population studies with data from three health surveys; HUNT 1 (1984-86), HUNT 2 (1195-97) and HUNT 3 (2006-2008). With a large collection of health data and biological material, HUNT data is used by researchers in many varied fields. At CERG, we have in part used HUNT data to study the relationship between physical activity and cardiovascular disease, for example looking at VO2max as a predictor of future health.

Over 200,000 participants so a pretty big sample. It would appear that the age is based on an average person so a fitness age of 20 or whatever is not a massive deal considering most people do no exercise.

VO2 max estimates are based on this: http://www.ntnu.edu/cerg/fitness-numbers

Not total Bollocks, it just that showing mean figures will always throw up outliers that make the predictions look a bit stupid. Like bodybuilders and BMI.

20v49 :-)

I had similar thoughts and bought a scott spark, it was s”t. If you like jumping, buy a hardtail you can jump instead, something like a chameleon.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/vitus-bikes-minium-kids-bike-2013/rp-prod85582

Separated at birth and a fair bit cheaper.

They cant do anything for bruised/cracked ribs so no real point in going to A+E.

I am pretty sure they will all ride the same trails.

Switchbacks was the original but having been out with them twice, I sometimes got the feeling that mike has started to take his customers for granted. The newer competitors might be a bit more focused.

You could probably make a fair bit (and avoid a lot of the hassle) by only charging people to park their cars/camper vans/ catering trucks on it with none of the extra facilities and associated costs.

Some of the farmers around Bourg D’Oisans seemed to be doing pretty well from this when we were there just after the Alpe d’huez stage.

Pump up the volume.

Then you will need a nice piece of paper:

$13,750 a sheet[/url] :o

Brides throwing cats