I've always been afraid that the recongnition we've been chasing would bring power of the kind easily rendered impotent by it's accompanying responsibilities.

And while I'm eternally grateful for the sentiment of those willing to give up their time attempting to advance the trail networks, I've always been quietly rather terrified of the consequences their actions would bring.

We're a nation legislating ourselves into irrelevance. It feels like an unstoppable force. And the fact that such ridiculous paper pushing is clearly and easily justifiable makes it so much worse.

Many hands make light work, too many hands make paperwork.

Btw how come that isn't violating the dw link patent?

Would you like to take on the legal team of a company the size of Giant? 😀

I never go as I like to maintain a distance from the embarrassment, but I really enjoyed hearing the tale of one memeber of staff who'd recently accepted a job offer with us and was just working her notice period at her old employer. Despite not having started yet, she was invited to our the christmas party to get to know the team she'd be working with.

She ended up trying it on with the CEO (of a very large national newspaper publisher employing thousands) in front of his wife, fighting on the floor with one of the other girls and then retreating to our branch manager's hotel room, locking herself in and smearing red hair dye all over the walls while screaming and crying.

Her job offer was revoked.

Just AWESOME.

+1

Farmer's Blone is the way forward!

http://road.cc/content/review/11378-fabric-horse-lock-holster

?

Mmmm that is pure riding right there ommmmmmmm feel at one with the terrain glasshopper
I imagine they will have gone even purer by having not 1 gear, but 0 gear.
HobbyHorseChic will be all the rage in that London.

Either that or they'll run cranksets that actually apply the brakes which would render the bike immobile upon pedalling input but for the fact that:

a) their brake calipers dont have pads but powered wheels which apply drive to the discs which take power from the rotation of the headset (which is situated at the bottom of the seatpost rather than at the headtube – the headtube actually featuring a splined interface bewteen frame and steerer thus preventing any form of steering which simply detracts from the riding experience anyway)

b) their expensive niche wheels allow the rims to freely rotate independantly of the hubs so brakes and drivetrains have zero effect on the bike's speed and direction of travel

And in addition, those beardy STW niche mongers still insistent on using primitive wheels will be using 'negative suspension' whereby the forks and shock work the opposite way, actually extending on impact, in order to magnify every undulation in the terrain.

Oh, and to further answer the OP, the few bikes that do still have wheels (only popular among the beardy niche mongers on STW) in 2025 will, due to advances in frame geometry and tyre compounds, be capable of cornering like the light cycles in Tron.

Hoverboards though…Hmmm
Roll along the ground on a wheel for free.
Or use 10x the energy hovering 1 foot off the ground.
Never quite understood the point in that…

You don't see the point of hoverboards? Sorry, doesn't compute. What about hoverbikes and hovercars?

That's the only thing that's good about the future – hovereverything.

I think there's lots of development yet to be seen in the way of folding bikes.

Maintenance-free drivetrains will become the norm.

I also agree with a post above that we'll start to see a number of car-free housing developments in the near future.

And mountainbikes will one day be hoverbikes, with suspension travel and action set on the fly by adjusting the downward force of the hover technology. Possibly even be set by a forward terrain scanner that constantly reads and anticipates what you're about to hit and adapts the suspension to accomodate.

Ironically, depite the doubtless popularity these machines will enjoy, they'll have been rendered redundant as by this time any riding beyond the controlled confines of trail centres will be punishable by death, while the trail centres in question will have been 'managed' into consisting of nothing more than 8 foot wide ribbons of perfectly polished, mirror smooth trails circling pointlessly around forests filled with reactive foam trees and speed cameras, if in fact speed isn't remotely restricted by satellite tracking.

Our place takes over a city centre pub for the evening, free bar for all 150 staff, and hotels for those that live too far to get home.

It's all very generous.

And every year I avoid it like the plague in favour of going out with my friends instead.

ATTENTION CYCLING SHOE MANUFACTURERS:

FLAT PEDAL SPECIFIC RIDING SHOES SUITABLE FOR WINTER XC = GAP IN MARKET. PLEASE FILL.

Taken tends to tick most the boxes!

I watched that for the first time last week. Brilliant. He punches some serious throat in that movie.

Actually, the section from:

"hey man, there's this cop scoping for you – check it out"

to

"Okay, stop the bike, time out, stop the bike"

in Terminator 2 is also pretty epic.

Mad Max 2.

The Heat bank heist is pretty epic, but for me the unrivalled king of action scenes has to be the section from the Lobby Scene to the Helicopter Crash in The Matrix.

That said, the Waterloo scene from Bourne 3 with Paddy Considine is also real edge of the seat stuff. Though probably more 'thriller' than outright action.

EDIT: Sorry, just read this

fight between Peter Griffin and the chicken!

and totally agree – disregard everything I and everyone else just said.

Why is biking not an option?

Go for a walk instead.

She weed herself on stage once. Incontinence is such a turn off for me. Though I'll bet it works for a few on here.

After every ride unless it's dark or I'm pressed for time. Getting the bike from Peak grit/Wharncliffe mud encrusted to showroom condition takes me about 15 minutes – so might as well. It means you tend to spot any mechanical issues before they develop.

It's no coincidence that those with filthy bikes have more mechanicals, IMO.

+1.

Having said that, the commute SS bike gets a brief cleaning probably once every six months or so except when the roads have been gritted – then it gets a daily rinse with the hose.

Using flat pedals to combat cold feet is a mistake.

I'm a die-hard flat pedal user, and the only problem I have is the fact that there are NO decent all weather flat pedal specific shoes out there. You can't use overshoes either.

For warm feet, stay with SPDs. Trust me, the only thing I hate about flat pedals is the lack of suitable winter shoes.

Skate shoes and five ten things are both crap for all weather XC use (I've tried both). Stick with winter SPDs, go a size up, wear thick thermal socks and overshoes and never feel the pain of trying to mash spikey pedals with numb feet on flexible soled, leaky, mud soaked shoes.

It's not Christmas 'til Noddy says so

Agreed. I haven't heard him yet either, so it's not christmas as far as I'm concerned.

get magura rim brakes

Yay – I'm not alone!

Was to be peak, but I can feel a chest infection coming on.

For that sort of stuff I'd get a Mitsubishi L200 4work – that's the very basic, building site spec – steel rims, no radio, no aircon, no leccy windows or any of that rubbish. Just an honest, hard working pickup.

Available in single, king or double cab flavours and I think they'll pull 2700kg.

mrmichealwright – you had me until you started with triads, riots and treestumps.

No no no – not disc brakes – they're all wrong for the BotE. You need to fit it with Magura rim brakes.

Depends on the specific grandness of the particular scheme of things to which you refer.

This is a really common question on here.

Using a long bolt and a section of felt tip pen outer as a spacer seems to be the accepted method.

See here:
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/roadrat-mudguards-technical-ninja-content

Just watched it during my lunch break. Truly splendid television, thank you for bringing it to my attention.

I didn't see it, but I'll try and catch it on 4OD if it's on.

Sounds interesting. It's interesting how mundane things can be made to look amazing when shown in the right way.

Among Giants managed it with electricity pylons and gasometers. Excellent.

Sits in the camelbak all the time – don't notice it's there unless I need it.

And I can't believe anyone's challenging Will's line choice 😀 The man was on an SS crossbike! Every line is a man's line on that machine!

I think I took the middle line, judging by that footage if I am in fact the bloke you only see for about an 8th of a second.

Now I'm sure it was just that Chris wasn't ready with the camera but I prefer to blame it on my being so immensely fast that he physically couldn't pan quick enough.

Yeah, that'll do.

Though I did choose the wimpy high-line as we dropped from Lockerbook to Ladybower (much to the annoyance and well deserved disdain of a couple of the others) but lets not talk about that…

the wrong way.

well there you go then – her lights were actually legal.

Good video, enjoyed.

I like the editing that makes it look like you do the top section of the hagg farm descent in about 4 seconds 🙂

whatever you do dont try re-educating your wife about the fact that there is nothing intrinsicly beautiful or special about a diamond and that she has a deep desire for diamonds because of a set of manipulative soceital pressures. dont do that.

also dont point out the basic economic principle of opportunity cost. dont argue that rather than a tiny piece of metal and stone you could have a wonderful holiday together. probably not the best option.

dont tell her that as an otherwise highly intelligent woman this should all be quite clear to her and that she has fallen in your estimation as a result of this childish desire to extract a large amount of money from you for the sole purpose of showing all her friends a shiny thing.

Also agree with the whole diamond ring being a De Beers invention. But, seriously, what can you do? Women are mental.

I may be in a minority but if my future wife had expected an expensive ring (a months salary, are you kidding?) I probably wouldn't have married her

Agreed. The whole expensive diamond ring thing seems like some bizzarre international hysteria.

"Why?"

post removed – I can't be bothered with the arguments

Go for a ride on the empty trails!

Oh, hello Susan. Slight problem. I was a bit bored, so I dismantled my Corby trouser press. I can't put it back together again. Will that show up on my bill?

Exactly what I thought when I read the thread title, and in fact what I think every time a trouser press is mentioned.