Thanks to all who replied.

Ended up getting a deal on Finale Ligure working out at less than £500 per head for flights from Dublin with bikes, uplifts, van hire and accomdation in a crackin’ Italia Villa with pool.

If anyone would like the details for themselves, let me know.

Thanks

Cheers guys, will check out the German sites.

How are they for delivery etc?

A friend sold his car just before a big night on the sauce. He got paid in cash, £11k – ish and had it in a plastic asda bag.

Night out was grand, led to having a load of randoms back to his place, general mess was created. Next day we tidied all up while home owner recovered in bed. He got up, and now began a frantic search. W<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>e’d assumed some of the randoms who’d arrived for the party had found the bag and left. Que 2 hours of phone calls, accusations and regret. </span>

Next move was calling the police, but someone suggested checking the bin for the asda bag, and sure enough £11k of booze stained cash laying at the very bottom of the bin.

A top spec tyre for my gti is around £90.
We are getting ripped off for our bike tyres.
End of.

A top spec standard tyre yes, if you went into speciality tyres in odd tread patterns, it would be comparable again.

Maxxis is a bit all over the place as a company, so I wouldn’t be surprised if these were just ad-hoc changes to try and sell more. They’ve been marketing Wide Trail for well over a year now, despite having very little stock in the market. Schwalbe or any of the others release new tyres and have stock ready within a month or 2 max, in good depth. Like how long have we been waiting on Wide Trail Aggressors.

It was hard to get any Maxxis tyres in any great depth over the summer because production all over the place.

AD plants could be the way forward.

I’m convinced that more could be done to harvest the energy from agricultural waste too. Animal agriculture is a massive polluter, yes, but why not push efforts into collecting the methane and polluting gases and use those as alternatives to fossil fuels.

My plot hole is, if entering light speed in kamikaze move was enough to largely destroy the entire enemy fleet, why not do that from the start?

Empty 1 ship out, bar a pilot. Turn around, enter light speed clean through them, destroy and carry on about your business.

Chris King surely?

Referred to this choice only. CK would be a fair shout if it was anything.

Money no object, 240s.

Real world, Hope.

If it’s year 2000+ avoid avoid avoid.

Friend has been riding some for the last 6 months. His line choices are often interesting…..

Superb wheels though. Took his abuse perfectly well (which is a miracle in itself) and he wouldn’t be fussy on maintenance at all.

I sort-of do both, office job and forestry / log work. (Not a qualified tree surgeon, but send about 20hrs per week doing tree & log work.) Run a side business selling logs, clearing pre-felled trees for farmers and private land owners, alongside being a buyer for one of the big online cycling retailers.

My advice is, if you’re going for it, you need to be 100% committed to your decision. Be aware that you’ll have days stood freezing cold in the middle of nowhere, putting yourself at huge physical risk for little reward. You will more than likely get injured and be out for weeks. Plan for it, I don’t know a tree surgeon who hasn’t.

Also, if you’re going self employed, be aware it’s not just solid money rolling in. Good kit can cost well over a year’s income. I started as a side earner with limited kit, but quickly discovered you need to be at it for a few years to really get the benefit.

The good days are great, the bad days are **** awful.

Suits.

7 seasons, 16 episodes per season to binge on and Meghan Markle to stare at throughout.

Clif bars

Solid combo.

Came standard on my hardtail and thought I’d have to upgrade straight away, bu no. Awesome trail bike set up.

Vigi is a superb all round tyre.

5×5 as others have said, but don’t underestimate how important good form is.

Maybe worth getting a PT session or 2 to ensure your form is on the money from the start. If you can nail the form on the 3 big lifts, everything else you should be able to teach / manage yourself.

If it’s a straight protein shake, (minimal carbs / fats) he’ll be fine.

There’s no real drawbacks to a higher protein diet, and I can’t see how his age would affect that.

So long as he’s still eating normally around that, he’ll be grand.

A lot of people had bother with E13 wheels that came on earlier Capras. If you’re buying new, don’t worry about these, since been fixed.

Bike shop should apologise and offer a FOC fix and suitable amendment.

You payed for their service to have your product ready, you 10/10 shouldn’t have to quality check a shop’s work afterwards.

I’d avoid NN on the rear, found it to be awful under braking. Just locked up no matter what pressure, riding style, surface I was on.

Although my experience was only of pacestar, and not the new addix range. Trailstar / addix could be a different story.

Go for the Prime’s mate.

Fantastic wheels and incredible value. Only difference between them and the bigger brands is, that you’re not paying middle men along the way which push the prices of wheels up, without adding any end value or performance. Good friend is riding the Prime Pro alloy set albeit in rim brake, and he’s a bigger fella. 6ft5 & 125kg without kit, and the wheels have clocked over 2000 trouble free miles.

Best bang for buck out there.

Came to post exactly that.

Used a few different droppers, and the Brand-X is by far the best, even before you consider price.

Released the longer drop one too there.

Using the Airblast for the last few months.

Works great as a tubeless pump, never beaten yet across maybe 12-15 tyres. Only once did it take more than 1 blast to seat a tyre, got on second.

Perfectly fine as a track pump. If you’re super fussy on pressures, you maybe need a separate digital gauge to get accurate numbers, but you’d still save buying the pump and a gauge vs buying any of the bigger brand alternatives. Plus CRC/Wiggle will be good for warranty should anything ever happen.

I noticed a decent difference going from i19 to i27, but then those were super narrow.

Based on your tyre choice, you’re pretty safe with either.

You’ll be fine.

Just watch when you really lean over, they can sometimes snap-washout, but otherwise, awesome tyre.

Prime wheels ain’t shitty dude.

How much is an MOT test in mainland UK?

WTB Trailboss would be my shout. Far more capable tyre than the tread pattern would have you believe.

They’re pure fun. If you value fun above all other factors when you go for a ride, get one.

If you’re concerned about strava times, racing, comfort, training, etc probably better with a FS.

Try being from Northern Ireland.

Identify as British, half will disapprove. Identify as Irish, the other half will disapprove. Identify as Northern Irish, everyone will disapprove for not taking a “side”

I’m glad and proud of where I’m from.

One thing I like about Americans. National pride. Be **** proud of where your from. Celebrate it, enjoy it.

Nukeproof mega. Paypal finance through CRC.

Job jobbed.

I jumped from 19mm internal to 27mm using Easton Heists on my hardtail. (Awesome wheels btw, good choice)

If you have the frame clearance, I’d go 30mm in case you ever find yourself doing anything bigger in the future, which your Meta will probably encourage you to do.

But if you’re happy with the riding you’re doing now, I’d say you’re safe with 24mm, or 27mm as a middle ground.

CRC have cracking deals on the Easton’s too. That’s where I got mine. Bargain wheels.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/easton-ec90-aero-55-road-clincher-wheelset/rp-prod143626

I’m very reliably informed these will drop in price shortly.

Got the book, use it for recipes as the workout stuff doesn’t really suit my goal.

Food is largely awesome. Some cracking recipes in there. Curry in a hurry is a personal favourite for work lunches during the week.

Thanks for replies folks.

Surprised at just how popular DT Swiss is vs Hope. Pretty much everyone up until now has been recommending Hope.

Question is now, is the 240 worth the extra over the 350.

Thanks again