Went to the winter wonderland in Hyde Park at the weekend and discovered hot chocolate with rum OMG 😯 why did no one tell me about this before.

Thankfully it was cold enough to justify having 3

Ta for that, edge trail bundle it is then.

I’ve got a cracking Halti day sack I got skiing in Finland has an elastic acted section across the inside of the back of the pack that takes the antidote bladder from my mule and a headphone flap (not one of the plastic grommet things) I can feed the tube through works a treat if I need a bit more space.

That said I can normally get everything I need in my mule anyway.

Peaslake is the big trail round here it seems but only 20 mins from south downs if the traffic’s ok or if you want something leisurely there’s the downs link.

Just sorting out joining the local club so not been on any others round here. Could always ask in Freeborn or ADC if that’s where you’re picking up the bike from but the Freeborn folks normally go to Peaslake on a Sunday morning.

As an an alternative just spotted this
http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/special_buys3_22405.htm

£20 for gore windstopper soft-shell seems pretty good. Meant for golf so not sure what the cut would be like and doesn’t lok like there’s refletives but no hood which personally I prefer. On sale Thursday

http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/media/offers/01_11_week_50/Product_detail_Wk50T_42.jpg

I’ve got the Feedback ultralight absolutely fantastic. Saw Wiggle had it for £120 last week given their £15 off £100 spend getting it for £105 delivered is a proper Billy bargain

Mine thinks my new T120 cost £800 😀

What about these Ergons

http://www.ergon-bike.com/gb/en/product/pc2 was thinking about getting them for my commuter their other products (grips especially) are excellent.

If the problem is his knees why not get a free floating pedal like the speedplays? You can adjust them from fixed to masses of float feel weird at first but had them on my last road bike and they were great for my knackered knees, even better than Times.

The Nike dryfit T shirts are good, lots cheaper than Berghaus etc, mine we about £11 from Costco. Looks like a silky regular T shirt, even has some reflexives on it for the summer evenings but works well under a jumper at this time of year.

Defo wool though not cotton and if you can stretch to it there are some really nice Icebreaker jumpers out now, just make sure you try them as they tend to be a bit “athletic” in the cut so maybe go up a size for something more casual.
Nice light windproof on top.
For legs I’d avoid jeans this time of year had too many freezing leg moments on my commutes to Uni in the past, cord is a good call but remember the ankle straps it’s a bugger to get out of your chainset maybe one of the nice leather brooks wraps?

Just posted somewhere else on my new one. My Canondale mini pump is now skipped after dumping the CO2 out of my tyre in the middle of no where. In it’s place I’ve got the Topeak Road Morph G about £25 from CRC. Bit bigger than a lot of the really small pumps just over a foot long but has a flip out handle, foot so you can use it like a mini track pump, decent chuck with flip lock and an online pressure gauge. Not had to use it in anger yet but seems really well made and gets rave reviews. they also do the MTN versions with or without gauge but they’re a bit heavier.
I’m carrying it in my Hawg so size ok but you can get a frame fitting bracket that zip ties on but may need to put it under the top tube if it’s a small frame.

Supposed to be on sale at Sainsburys in a couple of weeks at £119 according to hotukdeals

“The Thing” soon, saw the trailer for the latest remake

Tried a couple of Montane jackets at Snow and Rock last week seem really good quality (pertex ones) but definitely need to get a size up from what you would normally wear.

Topeak Morph pumps seem really good. Just got the road Morph G from CRC for about £25 after my cannondale mini pump dumped all the CO2 out of my punctured tyre. The road one is basically same dimensions as the Mtn but with an online gauge and ways a bit less still quite big tho similar length to the Lezyne but I don’t like their chucks the Topeak lever ones have never let me down.

Just cancelled my order but due to yet another paypal cock up. Used paypal for 3 different things on Monday two paid immediately but then this e cheque thing comes up for my crc order says thy won’t clear it until the 5th and no they can’t change it bloody idiots. Called crc all they could do was cancel the order and get me to re- order but now the crank bros mini tool I wanted has gone up 10 quid….

Frankly not going to bother with either of them if I can avoid it just get the stuff from Evans down the road on price match…

Me hopefully

Feedback all the way. I’ve got the ultralite, easy up and down totally stable and the sliding clamp seems much better than the others I’ve seen and tried. Not really ultralite in the normal sense of the word but in comparison with all the others I’ve seen it definitely is.

What model of tv is it? I’ve got the Samsung 40C7000 it’s got free view HD, Internet apps (iplayer, YouTube etc) and does recording. The recording is to an external USB hard disk, had an old 500gb western digital lying around use it and it’s been great so far only real issues with recording is it only has one tuner so can’t watch one record another and it reformats the HD so can’t easily swap it between pc and tv.
I’ve got the matching blu-ray player as well and in fact it has most of these features itself, that said hardly ever use it as my movie collection is mostly ripped to my pc and I can stream from it to tv using dlna across my home plugs works really well and really reduces the amount of kit you need in the living room.

Contact points if you feel the need. Decent winter tyres or go tubeless with right tyres and stans kit (assuming the rims are compatible). if you like the saddle keep it they’re very personal choice. nice wide bars (Renthals are lovely) decent grips, lots of folks seem to like the superstar ones but personally I like ergons, pedals just got a set of superstar nanos and while I’ve not had flats for ages they really are good but been riding spds for years.

Alternatively riding kit, good shorts or probably better 3/4s for this time of year, decent gloves and jacket and shoes for whatever type of pedal you have/get.

Or spend the money on getting out to some trails?

wierd couldn’t finish post?

downsides of Finland

Its dark all the time (but slopes are floodlit)
they put this horrible orange garlic sauce on everything even use it s a pizza base if you don’t ask them not to..
Other than that it was fantastic.

Couple of tips from my experience overall go to a snow dome and get some lessons as mentioned by others
Icebreaker 260 underwear is a very wise investment
get a polartec buff its unbeleivably cold at the top of the mountains
TK max and outlet villages are your friend, got my jacket from Tog24 in cheshire oaks, salopetes from TK Max along with lots of socks
don’t skimp on gloves they are worthe the money mine were about £40 but well worth it
All ski boots hurt

Was in same boat couple of years ago but no-one has mentioned Finland yet, bit different but really good for beginners for a number of reasons
Guaranteed snow from November to May
Not huge mountains but big enough for beginners
Dead quiet outside of Finnish holidays
Everyone speaks perfect English and instructors are fantastic
No more expensive than Italy and cheaper (lots) than France
Get an apartment in Ruka where we went and they all have Sauna’s
Reindeer taxes fantastic (especially in “donner” form)
Restaurant there serves bear stew only one of a couple of places in Europe that are allowed to
You can get a sauna bus or take snowmobiles to or from the airport and it’s only 30 mins transfer
Northern Lights if you’re lucky
Santa lives there
Lots of superb non ski activities for when your legs have completely given up on day 5 probably the best single experience of my life was dog sledding with a pack of Siberian huskies, I so want my own racing pack, thought the snowmobiling would be the best but the dogs rock…

Downsides

Wasn’t the a firm in the UK built diesel trail bikes for the US military a few years back? Seem to remember it was for logistics then so they would only need one type of fuel for all their different vehicles

I actually quite like the look of them and there must be masses of torque

Classic, best manual machine available, that said mines bust (need to find a decent repairer in London but not looked enough yet) you can get away without a grinder at first but at least something like the Gaggia burr grinder makes a big difference when you have a bit more experience.

Yes the Rancilos are brilliant but if you can afford it or wait until the sales and see what’s available you really can’t beat the Jura automatics, even their cheap ones are expensive but they are so good, reliable and easy to use you’ll probably actually use them a lot more.

Hose first get worst off, cleaner suitably diluted. Juicy stuff diluted 10:1 at the moment but was using Sarnagloss car all purpose cleaner but Tesco Daisy actually very good to and works out about 10p a litre. Use foaming spray bottle head. In the nooks and crannys cheap paintbrush to agitate and a cheap noodle glove for the main tubes, rims etc. Never bother cleaning the tyre treads just rinse any big globs off.

Dry down with old micro fibre that’s been retired from car duty (36 for £10 in Costco) then clean chain using neat juicy degreaser in old Barbieri chain cleaner check cogs and chain rings and if needed give them a clean with quick spray of degreaser and wipe off, always check and clean jockey wheels they always seem to be full of crud then spray of juicy break cleaner on the rotors, oil the links on the chain (finish line wet this time of year) few drops of cable lube on the few exposed bits until I need new cables when Gore’s will be going on, quick spray of fork juice on front and rear shock stantions then cycle them a couple of times to get it into the seals, put bike away until next ride.

About 2 or 3 times a year I used to wax my frame as it was steel not sure If I will on new one as it’s alloy and carbon so won’t get rusty. If you do want to I recommend the dodo waxes you can get them in small tester jars for about fiver and one will do a bike maybe 10 times easily their coloured waxes are especially good.

A lot easier than my car, not been tempted to clay any of my bikes yet 😀

Got them on my Whyte so far so good decently light maybe a bit “pingy” but pretty decent for the money I think. That said everyone seems to rave about Hopes with Stans rims and they’re not massively more expensive if a bit noisy at the back for some.

Do need to find out what the spoke nipple size is as even though they’re still true want to get a spokey as inevitably they’ll get a bit loose.

Got mine at Slanj in Glasgow good service and better range of fabrics in my Tartan but it’s the same as the owner’s so he had sought out some better mid weight fabrics.
Also had the option to have the fabric made as I really wanted my ancient hunting rather than the Craig modern but need 2 kilt lengths at £1500 before the actual tailoring so just got the modern. Good range of accessories as well but I actually got my Sporran, kilt pin and Ghillie shirts from Hector Morris as they were quite a lot cheaper.

Definitely recommend one of the kilt rolls for transporting it mines’s been to the US, India and Aus and came through unscathed every time.

Need to get some new Ghillie brogues Might wait until Lidl have them in again see what they’re like were only £20 when they had them last year.

Are you concerned with price ot TCO? Some great deals on unregistered still to be found in some of the car supermarkets when I got my CLS from Motorpoint ( with a £17k saving :-)they had a couple of unregistered SLK 200K at £21k

When I was looking at company cars about 5 years ago the best value was actually the Boxster given the lower depreciation on it.

I’ve had a pair of Barkers for about 9 months but just had to get the sole replaced which I’ve never needed to before, that said much better fit than Loakes or churches for me and the uppers on Loakes have always been the weak point for me. Got a very good deal and excellent service from boson shoes on line.

What I really want is a pair of Lobbs, fair enough they’re 2 grand but custom made by hand and basically will last the rest of my life might really splurge for my 40 th next year to go with the Huntsman suit I’m getting 🙂 and best of all with my new limited company tax deductible !

On my second joe blow (yellow one) reversed over the first one. Particularly like the twin head valves dead easy to lock on.

Had one of those price too good moments at the evans clearance sale on saturday and got one of the big barreled lezyne ones, alloy foot with base mounted gauge, really wide barrel, nice wooden handle, long hose and reversible 2 part chuck. No idea of original price but they had reduced it to £40 and then I got 60% off that 🙂

Loctite do a whole range of them and I think they have a couple of low torque ones I’ve been trying to get the medium torque one in the “pritt stick” format as my bottle of thread lock is getting really old… Can’t find anywhere near me tho’ will wait until I go back up to Wirral the engineering supplies place on the A41 does most of them.

If you don’t want to get from there Tesco (bizarrely) were the cheapest for the upgrade version, almost £20 less than Scan in fact. there’s a couple of workarounds when it comes to activation (legal and endorsed by MS actually) assuming you have an old license for an earlier OS, and yes it is the best think they’ve done for a long time definitely worth the change.

I’ve got the samsung 40C7000 which is edge lit led and while the picture quality is generally stunning the blacks can go cloudy if the tv’s been on for a few hours, tbh the model down with the standard backlighting is probably better picture quality but it’s way thicker which meant the mrs didn’t like it.

Monaro if you don’t mind the fuel bills won’t get much more fun with that amount of space for the money.

Looks a lot like the FSA one I’ve got except mine is only inset at the bottom race, I assume they’ll make one for it tho

Tried a couple of Orbeas before I decided to get a new mountain bike (will probably get a road bike next year tho) the build quality was fantastic and even though it seemed to have exactly the same geometry as some far racier bikes it was much more comfortable, hope you enjoy it!

Had to go up a size with my Sidis but they’re notorious for that, however I’ve got wide feet and they fit fantastically plus have lasted the best part of 10 years.

Whyte T120 like mine. Good deals on the 2011s if you can still find them. Light and very active with good kit for the money and nice slack head angle but not as short as a stumpy.

Does the roller have a tension adjuster? Tighten it up and pull the roller closer to the tyre but watch out for heat build up blew apart a tyre (and the side of the rim) years ago when I was actually fit and used a trainer in the winter.

Or get one of the trainer specific tyres and stick it on an old cheap wheel.

There’s mountain bikes in this one…

http://www.cyclepassion.com/Calendar/CYCLEPASSION-CALENDAR-2012::47.html?XTCsid=51fe0928fc65f3fb98c0c3f039a2eb3b
😀

Find out if there’s a samsonite factory store near you, got a few from the one in Cheshire Oaks at big discounts (mostly just unpopular colours ie not black or silver but makes spotting it at the carousel much easier) full warranty which I’ve needed to use a couple of times and they’ve always been great.

I’m really fussy with luggage because I’ve travelled so much so always get a hard case with a sealing gasket and definitely locking clips not zips they fall apart after a few months. Samsonite best of the main stream IMHO but Delsey also very good but slightly less baggage handler proof.

Or if you’re feeling a bit more flush get a Haliburton Zero, the original one that the good Rimowas copied my cabin bag is one of their 20″ jobs in alloy, be prepared to be hugely pissed off first time it gets checked in as the beautiful alu case will be scratched and dented but now I think it looks really cool, just dropped my mrs off at T5 with it on her way to DC. Or if you win the lottery they do it in carbon fibre, unfortunately they start at about $2k…