I have used the external pack that Jonba has linked to on a Garmin 800 and it worked fine for a 24 hour race. I think I just used the cable that came with it. From memory it is one of the lower spec Garmins that can’t be used while it is charging.

Yes you can. I drove to the south of France with a roof box and three bike carriers on top of my Passat estate.

One road bike, a mountain bike and a kids bike on the roof.
This is with a Thule Pacific 500 roof box. I don’t think Thule sell these any more, but I am sure they do an equivalent.

It was a very tight fit, and took a bit of playing around to make it fit. Once the bikes are on the box couldn’t be opened.

30t with 11-36 on a 29er for me. Seems fast enough on the flats and downs, although I am happy to spin the pedals, and the 30t front ring makes the climbs a bit easier.

My wife is pretty quick on a bike and runs a 28t on the front of her 29er with an 11-36 cassette. Seems to work for her, but I think it would be too spinny for me.

I have been using a set of their road rims since the end of last year. So far so good, but like above I have disc so can’t comment on the braking surface. Mine have the solid rim bed so very easy to set up as tubeless, although I guess a real pain to thread the nipples through. LB built these ones for me on Novatech hubs.

I have also have two sets of wheels with their mtb rims, and I haven’t had any problems with any of them.

I had a week in Gozo a couple of years ago. Hired a fairly rubbish mtb from a local bike shop and actually found some decent off road riding. It took a bit of exploring, but there are plenty of trails there. The roads were nice to ride on too. In comparison the roads in Malta seemed very busy. About 10 years ago I used the helicopter transfer between Malta and Gozo, but it wasn’t running last time I was there.

Turbo trainer for me tonight. Thursday is the night my wife gets to go out, and the kids aren’t old enough to be left on their own just yet…

If you are flying then pre-book from one of the money exchange places at the airport. I think they all exchange at the best of todays rate or the day you travels rate. You only pay when you collect too. For example Money Corp are at Gatwick http://www.moneycorp.com/uk/travel-money/airport-collection/ Not sure how their rates compare to others?

Actually just checked and it looks like you can only pre-book one month in advance. So maybe helps a little nearer the time?

Both of my kids were on a conc14 from 3 years old. Once they out grew it they went straight onto a Benin 20, I can’t remember the age they switched, but probably before 5 years old. My youngest has now almost out grown the Benin, and I think she will be on a 24″ wheeled bike in a few months, she will be almost 7 then. I have found the quality of the Islabikes to be pretty good, no issues with rust or bearing seizing, and the bikes have seen lots of use in all weathers.

Having used Rockshox forks for years I have started to go off the Solo ones. My wife bought a set of Reba Solo forks year or so ago. The air chamber failed after a couple of rides, losing all pressure and blowing the left fork seal off, all sorted out by SRAM under warrenty. I have just returned a new set of Sids that failed in the same way on the 2nd ride. CRC offered a refund on these. And then we were riding at the weekend and the seal on my wife’s Reba fork popped off again. Never had any problems with the dual air ones (I have several sets) but the solo ones seem to have some issues.

I have been using two sets that I built myself (both are about 2 years old) I haven’t had to adjust them once. Although I did build them with Pro Lock nipples. One thing I did notice when building them is that due to the stiffness it was very easy to get them true, but with the spokes at an uneven tension, riding them like that would cause the spokes to un-tension.

I fairly often do similar early starting rides. Normally 3-4 weetabix with milk and a bit of honey on top, together with a couple of cups of coffee. In the winter I tend to go with porridge. Works for me.

Going tomorrow as well. I have never been to a MX race before, but my wife won some VIP tickets a couple of weeks ago, so looking forward to it.

A freind is just changing back to normal rings on a double as the oval rings made for a few poor changes which he finds distracting whilst racing

My wife found this too. Using oval rings on the front of a 2×10 set up and the front shifting was fairly poor. I spent ages trying to get it to work perfectly, nothing made it as good as round rings. I tried various height front mechs and tilting the mech, but the shape of the rings seemed to be the limitation, as they only give good shifting in a small part of the pedal revolution. It really started winding her up, so would pretty much never shift the front chainring midrace. Now switched to 1×10 and she is much happier!

For a mass start race the pace tends to be fairly quick for the first part of the race, and it is worth making an effort so you don’t get held up in bottle necks near the start. After that you can normally ease off the pace slightly. So to get used to it I would try to fit in a hard 30 mins immediately followed by a more endurance paced ride.

As mentioned above I would try to overtrain a bit before going on holiday. Once on holiday try to find some way to fit in a bit of exercise. On holidays I done everything from dodgy hire bikes, indoor bikes in the hotel gym, early morning fast walks on the beach. I struggled a bit last year as Eygpt in August was a bit hot, but managed some decent time swimming in the sea.

I am not sure if you can see this without following me, but this is a 100mile circular route starting in Frimley and going to Chichester. https://www.strava.com/activities/267905892. It would be fairly easy to extend to 200km.

I use Plotaroute.com to plan long road rides. Once you figure out how it works it is easy to tweak the route to get the distance you want.

My wife found similar at Frith Hill a few weeks ago, caught her around the neck, luckily it just caused a bit of grazing. That had been put up by the army as after detanagling her we spotted them a bit further up in the woods. I would guess the stuff at Caesers was probably related to the army too, it is their land after all.

I am pretty sure carbon paste isn’t recommended on steerer tubes – definitely not on carbon steerers. Are you sure the play in the spacers didn’t come from the bearings settling into the frame by a tiny amount? Like you suggest tighten the top cap abit and then retighten the stem, 5Nm will be fine.

I have a Westafalia detachable on my car, and a Strada Evo 3 bike carrier. No problems at all with it. I have had this set up almost year and it gets used 2-3 times a month, with normally 2 or 3 bikes on. You just need to make sure the lever is pressed down hard enough, but apart from that I can’t see what the problem could be?

I have a 29er Epic and my wife has a 29er Spark. Can’t remember the exact models, but both carbon front end and ali rear. They are both great bikes, I really couldn’t say which one is the best. The main difference is the Brain shock on the Epic vs the manual lockout on the Spark. The Spark lockout does work very well with no movement when locked out, however with the Epic there is no messing around with levers. Both bikes have been ridden in all sorts of stuff, from XC and 12hr races to trail centres.

Sorry that doesn’t help much. See if you can get a test ride on both to see which suits you the best.

At 6 Swinley is probably worth a visit. My daughter is 6 and she rides the Green fine, and then we tend to ride the fireroad to Stickler (sorry not sure what the Blue number is for it) where she can ride all of that, there are a few easy berms in there. Then it is an easy roll back down the hill to the carpark. It won’t be long and she will be on the faster trails.

There used to be a nice little pump track at Deepcut, but flatted by the MOD a few years ago.

I managed to plod around for 7 laps. I rode the 7 laps with my wife, which was novel as we rarely ride together. Only one small arguement during the race! Neither of us have done any long rides this year so happy to get to the finish in one piece. Lou managed to catch her rear tyre on a bit of concrete on lap 3, and pretty much trash the tyre. Luckily a tube just about stayed inside and we managed to carry on. I managed to collide with a bit of branch sticking out from a tree and now have a rather sore shoulder, but apart from that fairly uneventful. very pleased to win a Gore spot prize, and Lou won some VIP tickets to the British MX GP which should be a good day out.

I think by the end the course was riding as well as Porridge Pot ever does, any drier and it becomes dusty and loose.

A 7 lap plod around for me tomorrow. For various reasons I haven’t done much riding this year, but hopefully I will get around 7 times.

As above the course is dry and dusty, I am sure a little rain will be soaked up by the ground. My wife posted a video of some bits of the course from earlier on XCracer. http://www.xcracer.com/kawasaki-100–preview.html

Sorry I can’t get the youtube link to work on this forum?

I have been using a Möbius for about a year. It is hard wired into the car and tucked up at the top of the windscreen, and it is tiny so very hard to spot from outside the car. Turns on with the ignition and constantly records. I have been very pleased with it.

I would have thought that at 10 a 26″ bike wouldn’t be far off. My son is 10 in August (probably average height for his age) and has just moved up to a 26er 14″ frame. The problem is there aren’t many super small 26″ frames out there. I bought him a Cube frame from bike-discount.de but they look to have sold out now, so not much help, but some small frames are out there.

There are several ways to deal with the tax, my company’s car allowance scheme works very well and as long as I do enough business miles a month then the allowance is almost all tax free. The company pays for the car insurance, so I do pay tax on that as a benefit in kind. I do have the option of a normal company car policy, but it costs me a lot more in tax, albeit with slightly less risk as I wouldn’t own the car.

I use the allowance to run a decent fairly new car, with minimal cost to myself. If I wanted to I could own a much cheaper car and save some money.

Every company’s scheme will be different. We have certain requirements on CO2, mpg, mileage and age.

The LG Netflix app used to just have one profile. It updated a month or so ago so that you can use multiple profiles, maybe you need to update the app, I think ours updated automatically. We have a kids profile setup, although there is no password protection on my profile, and I can’t remember if there is an option to add one. I think for the kids profile I had to set the age range and it filters the content they can see. Seems to work fine.

Yes. If your ride is on Strava just click the Fly-by option and if they have up loaded onto Strava you can see who it was.

I often look at it as it is interesting to see the various routes people take, and also how far people have ridden. It was actually useful for me once as I managed to track down someone who had lent me some patches at Swinley (my son had trashed his inner tubes) and I gave them kudos – also offered to send them some new patches, but I am sure the kudos is worth more…

I posted these pics on another thread on here, but it seems relevant to this one too.

I just finished building this up for my 9 year old son. Height 142cm. Currently standover is a litte tight, but not too bad. Now he has ridden it a few times he isn’t keen to go back to his old bike.

A lot of the bits on it is stuff I had in the loft, so the overall cost wasn’t too bad. Drive train is 1×10 with Thorn cranks with a 28t ring and 11-36 cassette. His old bike is a 12″ 24″ wheel Kona with a 34t front ring. So he is finding this one a bit easier on the hills.

That was bad that year. My wife had been out riding in the morning and had discovered how cold it was, so luckily I took full winter kit with me. I turned up to do the 3 lap race and found a few friends who were doing the 7 lap race stuggling to change brake pads due to shivering too much. I managed 2 of the 3 laps, at the start of the 2nd lap my rear piston moved out too far and wedged into place, locking the wheel up. I managed to free it, but couldn’t use the rear brake for the rest of the lap. I think every moving part on my bike was trashed after that one. Swinley in the wet really isn’t good!

The new venue is actually more weather proof and a lot less sandy, although very dusty at the moment.

I had the same last year. I was looking to buy an Audi, but needed to buy it through a finance scheme approved by my work. Most dealers I spoke wanted to sell me a discounted new car on their finance scheme. Unfortunately Audi’s finance wasn’t compliant with my work’s requirements, so I couldn’t get the discounts they were offering on a new car. I get the impression they are highly targeted on finance deals as most lost interest once I explained the situation.

In the end I found a salesman in my local dealer who was actually interested in selling a car, rather than a finance deal and sorted me out a cracking price on a 6 month old A5. Try a few dealers there are some good ones out there.

I would do Whites Level. I would say that is a bit smoother than Penhydd. My 9 year old son did Penhydd last October and found it fairly hard, although rode all the tricky bits. We did Whites Level last week and he found it a lot more fun. The start of the climb is a bit tricky now, but once past that it is all fine. I haven’t ridden Blade so not sure on that.

Just to update the thread. I finally got my son’s cube built up and it was given it’s first ride today. The build was from a few bits I had in the loft, plus a new drive train and brakes. 1×10 using the Thorn cranks and a 28t Absolute Black ring. Final weight is about 8kg. Stand over is still a bit tight for him, but he will grow into it soon.

He also needed a new helmet as his old one was cracked. Halfords sell a Bell youth helmet that is a nice match to the frame.

I often ride with 740 bars around Swinley, I can’s say I have ever found the bars too wide. The Swinley trails are all pretty wide, I can’t think of any bits I even get close to clipping bars on – I have probably cursed myself now and will clip a tree and crash next time I am there!

I had a mk4 Golf with similar rust, left it for ages as I thought it wasn’t worth fixing. It was only when I wanted to sell the car that I found I could buy a new sprayed wing from ebay for £100, and then I fitted it in an hour or two. It wasn’t a genuine wing, but the quality was fine, and the paint match was good. It was more than good enough to px the car. If I had been keeping the car longer I would have fitted a geniune VW part.

I would guess those wings just bolt on so if you are mildly handy with spanners it should be easy to fit a new one. Have a look on youtube there is probably a video showing how to do it.

Size wise I have Shimano and Specialized size 46 shoes. Size 46 in the Terraduro fitted me well, maybe slightly bigger than Shimano race shoes, and a bit smaller than the Specialized.

Shimano shoes normally have a couple of sticky patches included with the shoes that you stick over the cleat holes, although they never seem to last that long.

I got mine from Evans, I am not too far from there Gatwick warehouse so can pop in to try on every shoe they stock online, which helps…

I have been wearing these for the last three days while riding at Afan. Sometimes I was riding (or pushing) with my kids, and some times trying to do fast laps around the trails, temperature was low 20 degrees and I can’t say I noticed my feet feeling too hot or sweaty. Grip was good while pushing over rocks and stuff, and generally nice to walk around in. The sole doesn’t have loads of tread so I can see them struggling in mud. The sole has a bit more flex than the carbon soled shoes I have, but I wouldn’t say they are really flexible. I have noticed that the sides of the shoes rub my cranks more than other shoes I wear, although this might just be down to cleat position.

The colour does clash with my bike slightly:

Apparantly so. Ones with a date stamped under the insole should be fine. Ones with no date are being replaced by Giro. I have done a bit of walking in mine and they seem fine so far. Unsurprisingly a lot better for walking in than normal SPD shoes.

I have just checked mine and there is some sort of fabric patch stuck over the back of the cleat holes, it looks waterproof. I haven’t had mine long enough to test them in the wet, but seem like a decent pair of shoes so far.

Just to confirm what others have written really. I have been riding trails with my son for a couple of years, he is nine now. Mainly Swinley (as it is on our doorstep), but have just got back from a few days at Afan. I always let my son ride first, mainly incase some one faster approaches from behind. Also riding behind it helps to keep an eye on their riding and give them some pointers, rather than letting him watch me and hope he keeps up.

In all the riding we have done I can only think of one bloke who was very pushy when he wanted to get past. We had caught a slowish family on a short climb, he basically expected us, and them, to stop so he could continue riding past. To be fair he did say sorry to us at the bottom of the next descent, but still no need for his attitude.

Seven years ago age 2:

Yesterday age 9:

I am in a Tory safe seat, so safe that Michael Gove is standing again. In his 10 years as MP for the area I think his only involvement in local issues has been having his photo taken at key points around the area. Hopefully he will have a reduced majority this time.

Audi tow bars are made by Westfalia. I have a detachable one on my A5 and it is a very neat bit of kit, and is invisible when removed. I am not sure if they are all supplied detachable or not? I use an Atera Strada rack, it takes 3 or 4 bike. A sturdy bit of kit and easy to fit. It takes a bit of fiddling with the mounts to fit the bikes, but once set up is quick to load bikes.

Check weight limit of towbar and rack if you are planning to take 4 full suspension bikes.