Photo from Bealach Dubh looking down to Ossian

and then looking back, once down towards Ossian

Total and utter ballache, and that was on foot. Comlete bogfest

Can't help with changing the units, but minutes per mile (or mins per km) is how runners measure their pace, never in mph. Makes sense if you know your pace is 8 mins per mile and you're off for a 5 mile run.

Was also riding there today. Great ride, really enjoyed it (apart from my poxy howling brakes – apologies to anyone who got deafened by them)

I have a summer season with 100mm forks and a 70mm stem. Doesn't feel like a barge at all and runs fine.

No probs here with a Mono M4. Have the M4 up front and Mini at the back and to be honest it's usually the Mini that I'm fiddling with. The brakeset is four years old now and has been fitted to three bikes and all I've done to the M4 in that time is change the pads a few times and bleed once when I had to do something to the lever.

Field and Trek do proper waterproof bags (rucksack liners) with roll tops in a variety of sizes for less than a tenner each. I´ve combined these with my cheapo £17 panniers plenty times and kept stuff nicely dry. Granted theyre not as cheap as a Tesco carrier bag but they last forever and áre handy if you do any backpacking/camping etc

FFS. All winter I´ve been waiting for these conditions and now I´m out of the country for a week* reading about how fantastic my local trails are! Looking forward to a great summer at Woburn.

*could be worse, I´m sitting in the sunshine in Portugal planning some nice singletrack for tomorrow.

Willard, have you tried Phil Corleys in MK? They usually have a decent selection of Specialized to sit on, it´s where I bought my FSR from last year.

OG, which one is Oak Wood? Is that the newish (6 months) dark one through the densly wooded bit, coming out just up the path from Fullers Lodge?

How about if it tried to take off on a conveyor belt?

You did that on this forum too?

Ah fair enough, I shan't worry then. Cheers!

Even if the hold was a total vacuum the effective pressure will only be increased by 14psi.

I could be talking crap but I would imagine that effective pressure is more to do with ratios than absolute values. A 28psi tyre at sea level has a 2x pressure differential from one side of the rubber to the other. Drop outside pressure to 7psi and there's now a 4x differential. Drop to 1psi and there's a 28x pressure difference (equivalent of running nearly 400psi at sea level)

As I type this, I'm starting to think I'm talking bollards actually… 😉

edit: yes, I'm definitely talking rubbish

Do they? I don't know, that's why I'm asking. I just assumed the hold wasn't pressurised like the cabin was, hence them asking you to drop tyre pressures.

Without wanting to steal duncan's thunder, I took a few too. Here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jase_mk/sets/72157623493923991/

Got loads more on my PC, will see if I have any of the numbers posted above

Cheap, mass produced and not at all niche. I love it

Aston Hill have got some DH racing going on this weekend, I think. Not sure what impact that'll have if you just fancy turning up and doing some riding of your own…

No Brain on the FSR XCs.

I have an 09 FSR XC Expert (about £150 more than the comp – main diff I think is Recon forks, DT wheels and a couple of XT bits) and haven't really experienced any problems with the shock damping. Compression and rebound damping are fully independently adjustable from pogo stick bouncy to solid and slow.

I love mine. Gratuitous pic:

Room for a summer season?
Excuse the saddle bag and pump etc, I fancied a rucksack-free day.

I had one on my Zaskar, fit nicely. I then tried to fit one to a '97/98ish S-Works (prob similar to your stumpy) and it wouldn't fit. The dropouts aren't flat and the welds kind of get in the way. If you look at that picture above, the area around the top bolt needs a flat area to sit against as that's where it'll press against the frame when brake forces are applied. That area on the specialized wasn't really flat from memory (and nor is the droput), so the whole thing wobbled about all over the place.

Might be able to fit with some fudging but my best fudging attempts didn't get anywhere.

Some more discussion on replacing shocks on FSR XCs here:
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/quick-shock-length-question

A few of my lame exploits from last weekend

It has eroded due to use but the crap weather definitely makes it look/feel worse than it is. Come spring/summer things will be much better. There's a handful of trails that I try to avoid at the moment (eg second half of trippy tucker), partly not to make them any worse and partly because they're actually not that fun to ride.

I think most regulars are pretty sympathetic to the area and try to vary their riding accordingly. Like you say, OG, there's quite a few visitors these days that come from further afield, not knowing the area terribly well and heading straight for the 'good bits' that they know.

Yes – afaik choice of hub colour on Hope Hoops is only available from official Hope Tech dealers. Got mine from my LBS in Hereford (Coombes Cycles).

Hmmm, you'll get coloured hubs, but not white Flow rims. I enquired with a couple of specialist Hope dealers and they could only get black rims.

Don't trim anything, until you're completely done. I had a go at this last year and left all the excess rubber hanging out of the wheel until they were fully sealed, topped up with sealant and had been round the block a couple of times. Then trim, leaving a couple of mm sticking out still.

Those Schwalbe BMX tubes are like £5 a go. You need to be able to get the tyre on an off without trashing them else it starts getting pricey!

Not on the bike, but flying a kite, would you believe.

Biggest advice from me would be to see a sports physio for some proper rehab treatment. I know so many people who twisted or bust their ankles and now always seem more prone to going over on the same ankle. My Dr just said "meh, rest it and it'll be fine". Decided to see a sports physio just to be sure who explained how the ankle would never be the same without some decent treatment (this was free through work BTW, so it wasn't the physio trying to make a quick buck).

I knackered some ligaments, not bones. The ligaments heal, but with added scar tissue which can restrict movement and cause pain in the future. Part of the treatment was to break down this scar tissue, which bloody hurt! The other main aspect was to rebuild the (from memory, so I'll prob get this wrong) propriaceptors. These are involved in making quick adjustments to your balance without having to get messages to and from the brain. They get damaged during injury and if not redeveloped can lead to a tendency to go over on the same ankle in future.

I knackered mine at Christmas (a few years ago) and had a couple sessions a week in order to recover ASAP for a snowboarding holiday in March. It was still a little bit dodge in March but mostly OK, although I felt the odd twinge here and there well into the summer/autumn. First couple of days were the most pain I've ever experienced!

Yeah that was me. It's reasonably sensible, I've not come across any major downsides yet. It might be different with a massive fork though. The front end gets a little light on steep climbs while seated, but only a little and not enough so far to cause me any great grief.

I'm always there at 10, 11 and 12 on Sundays so if you happen to be passing then, feel free to take a look or take it for a spin round the block. If you want me to head up there a little earlier (like 9:30) or hang around after 12 for you to take a look then just let me know.

Just reading your original post again… Forkwise, I use mine with cheap 100mm Marzocchi forks and it works great. Plenty for Woburn and still suitably slack angled for being a bit of a hooligan on the steep stuff.

Oldgit. Was it you that came through the car park at the end of church road just over a week ago on a Sunday morning and said a quick hello to someone before riding off on a cross bike? If so, I was the one with the flouro orange summer season. What you wanna know?

I think they do another orange coloured bike (456 or 29er, not sure), but it's darker, the only luminous one is the summer season.

Good point. I'd be happy with a 100mm for most riding if not for the twitchy handling

100mm on my Summer Season feels great.

Another Jedi convert here!It was a bit of a revelation for me, after 20 years of MTB. As a teenager I used to get a bit of air here and there by yanking up on the bars and pedals over ramps but 15 years on I can't be arsed with all that.

Couple of hours with the jedi master and I was getting some really smooth air over table tops without pulling on anything, little bit of a pump/push was all it needed. It's amazing how quiet it all happens when you do it right, rather than the crash/bang/chainslap landings you get when you pull the bike up off the ground.

I'm not about to get into jumping in any big way, but it's nice not to have to worry about the wheels leaving the ground a little bit here and there when nailing it along a trail.

Er, I think they're MX Comps (100mm) from about 05/06.

No jig used. I tend to build wheels on my lap on the sofa then do the final bit of tightening/truing with the wheels on the bike, some zip ties on the seatstays/forks as guides. In fact you can see my zip ties in the second pic.

Yeah, bottle mounts on the seat tube would be handy. My saddle goes up and down a lot but not enough for bottle mounts to cause a problem I reckon.

Literally this morning just taken the 717/XT wheels off my On One and replaced the rims with Flows for exactly the reason you describe – 2.35 tyres were wallowing about a bit too much for my liking. Couldn't really afford to fork out for Hope Hoops so just got the rims for £50 each and built them onto the existing hubs:

Meh, I usually hacksaw it whilst it's still in the bike, wheel between my knees.

25 mins each way

Online Marketing Mgr

Winter – every now and again (twice since christmas)
Summer – couple times a week

Built up a Flow rimmed wheel last night and popped a Kenda Blue Groove onto it by hand. Wasn't really any more difficult than any other rims I've had to be honest. Perhaps a little bit tight but nothing major. One thing I did notice though is that it was more difficult to get the tyre seated nicely (admittedly, with a tube) all the way round. There were bits of the sidewall that were sitting too far down in the rim which I usually solve on other rims by inflating to about 15-20psi then grabbing and pulling the tyre by hand. Pumping them up really heard to see if they would pop into place didn't seem to work either.

Will order some valves, tape and sealant next week but wanted to get them up and running with tubes ready for riding this weekend. I predict the beads will pop into place easier with no tubes.

This is the picture I was trying to find…

But only RP23's come in that length

And this one…
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=47095

Stans for £49.99 – http://www.wheelies.co.uk/p23126/No-Tubes-Stans-ZTR-Flow-MTB-Rim.aspx

Takes a couple of weeks as they have to order them in.

Great little vid. Also struggling to place the very first clip. I started collecting a few little bits of footage last summer round Woburn to put something together but might start again from scratch when the weather improves.

best pic I can find at the mo

cant remember exactly what model but to be honest any old rack will fit. My slot dropout inbred has standard fixings and the disc mount is on the chainstay, not seatstay, so doesn't affect the rack.