oh and everyone knows girls can't drive defenders

Only those who haven't met my friend Em.

🙂

The only advice I ever give to people wanting Defenders – and I speak from experience as a Land Rover nut – is that they go missing. I don't know of another type of car that you can be so sure will get stolen. They're the best car in the world, by far and away. The criminals know that too.

In fact I must go and check on mine, wonder if it's still there.

I've been put off by the talk of unrideable sections, I'm not too good on foot.

Enjoy the adventure, make sure you get pictures if it gets particularly ridiculous.

http://spiekermann.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/before_after.jpg

I'd strap it down with an elastic band under the chin, though to be honest you shouldn't really be riding without a helm… oh, cat flap solutions, not flat cap solutions…

At least when he falls asleep reading he won't end up breaking his glasses. That happens all the time.

it says so on Wikipedia, so it must be true

book*

Yes, to be fair – though I linked to it – I wasn't relying on Wiki for my spelling of the village in which I live.

Interestingly I have some old Sheffield maps in which the village itself is referred to as Oughty Bridge, so the train station's chosen spelling wasn't totally random.

But this has now strayed way off topic.

And genuine. Don't know why it was that way, but it was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oughty_Bridge_railway_station

Another vote for Penistone here – it's about 15 minutes of flat bridleway that literally links Penistone station with Wharny, and invlolves not a single bit of road. A betterer (and flatter) option than riding from town.

The long defunct Oughty Bridge and Deepcar stations are actually in the woods – now private houses passed only by a single goods train per day. But that's irrelevant information.

To be fair, most good designers are terrible at spelling

So that's why I'm a rubbish designer…

jackthedog's cloak of invisibilty strikes again 😕

Rotec RL9 or Last Herb would be my choice.

I always used to like the series of GT ads from a few years ago with the tagline 'Fast – it's corporate policy'.

Unfortunately the only example I can find throws up a malware warning.

Any suggestions for keeping ice off flat pedals? Lots of slippage today!

Maybe you could use a dynamo to power a heating element attatched to the pedal which could keep them defrosted.

If you're careful with the application of helitape it's invisible. I see loads of it really shodily applied and it looks worse than worn and scratched paint. But if you're careful and do it properly it's fine. Half my bike's covered in it and nobody notices.

However Orange swingarms can't really accept helitape to defend against chainslap as the weld along the bottom prevents proper application, and that is the very area that suffers heavily. Whipping the mech off and stretching innertube over the swingarm is the most practical solution but it's very ugly, so instead I'd buy two (neoprene or whatever) chainstay protectors and use them together so they'll reach round the box section.

anyway, i wouldn't buy a car now without electric windows, air con, 3 year warranty, cd player, power steering, non-vinyl seats, etc etc so why would i want to go back in time with my push bike?

Literal LOL – I'm not trolling here, this is quite genuine. Four none essential features of my otherwise solid car that either don't work or are in need of attention and are going to cost money to fix:

Electric windows
air con
CD player
power steering.

Nobody has to justify the bike they ride and the components they choose to fit or avoid. But I couldn't resist replying to the OP here 🙂

Very slushy everywhere, slippy as a slippy thing.

Or get a bus down the 'cliffe and go proper seedy 😕

That looks really very nice – don't ruin its proportions by fitting the rest of the crudguard!

Like the flip up seats with intergrated belts. Very useful idea.

Apologies for my earlier abrubt post, was keen to join the fun but a bit rushed for time to post 🙂

Count me in.

Is this the thing I agreed to the other day, suggested by Hora?

If so yeah. If not, yeah.

Wonder why the rear triangle appears to extend above the lower pivot on the LHS only?

Front mech clearance?

I find the crossrides a bit flexy. I never managed to knock them out of true or ding the rims, but they're not the stiffest of wheels if that sort of thing others you. For the money they're wonderful though.

I might be up for a bit of that.

Neither is cool.

I agree 100% with the OP.

what gets me down is the people's blind devotion to the institution that is christmas.

Aye.

If they wanted to go out with dignity they should have called time after the sublime and utterly moving piece on the Aston V12 they ended the last series with.

Can you get home by any other none-road-based means?

having been stranded at work all night by flooding a couple of years ago I'd suggest anything is better than a night on the floor under the desk.

Great vid that mate, enjoyed. Some of the steps look sketchy in the snow!

Also, flex-a-riffic I would think, too!

I know. How long into the first climb do you think you'd get the swingarms to contact the seat tube?

The idea behind it is somewhat similar to the Klein Mantra, namely that front end impacts will also activate the rear suspension.

That's all well and good in theory on the Mantra, but with no suspension bewteen the front wheel and the bars, and no suspension between the back wheel and the BB, it would have felt very, erm, rigid for an FS bike.

Basically you're left with suspension only when sat, and even then only at the saddle.

Sounds like the equally pointless Softride concept to me – or as I like to think of it, a very heavy and needlessly complicated, aesthetically abhorrent version of the humble suspension seatpost.

It's hard to see how anyone could make the Mantra look any uglier, but somehoe they managed with that carbon version. I'd love one cos I'm a bike geek, but bloody hell that's ugliness on a whole other scale.

My friend moved to the US and let his house out. He stored loads of his possesions in the loft and plastered over the access door.

Moots

There are probably only about 3 photos of my riding in existance as I'm quite camera shy.

This shyness doesn't come from anything other than the fact that I don't want to see photographic evidence that what felt in the first-person like some mad Vouilloz action actually appears to the third-person like a shortarse hairy northerner bimbling down a bridleway.

I ride like Peat and Gracia and Nico – as long as nobody's looking and can prove otherwise.

Sorry for the Hijack…

and Wentworth has the claim of Europe's largest fronted country house in Wentworth Woodhouse

The book about the history of that house, the surrounding community, coal industry and the stranger-than-fiction Wentworth dynasty is genuinely one of the most fascinating books I've read in ages. Black Diamonds – sounds crap but I can't recommend it enough.

Sorry, have nothing valuable to add to the Rotherham debate. I'm from Sheffield. S'areyt.

It's just a small town in Sheffield…

Ha, like Chesterfield and Barnsley really.

Having checked the link, they looks bargainiscious. Good purchase 🙂

Incidentally I love the user review that describes them as

Strong like a rail

If you're trying to back out of a steep driveway near my house in a big Jap 4×4 , make sure you put the bloody thing in 4 wheel drive you useless muppet.

Lol at the washers and spacers thing.

I took one look at the random collection of metalwork in the box of my freshly purchased 3 peice cranks before taking them straight back to the shop complete with bike to get them to fit it.

The look of dread on the mechanics face when he saw what I'd brought in stays with me to this day.

RE removal, I know some have self-extracting bolts which make things easier (unless the thread strips when you come to remove them for the first time in 6 years – which mine did)

Off road?

Yeh

He's not kidding, I've seen the madness with my very eyes. Not far off my bloomin commute gear, that.

Awesome visions of a four cross race from the top to the bottom of a multistory car park.