She is more than welcome too.

Juan, I think you have ridden Lou’s 16″ SS Inbred she is only 5’4″. She also has a 16″ Whippet which is a good fit, she runs a fairly short stem. I am pretty sure a 14″ Whippet (if they made it) would be too small for her.

I had a Genesis Altitude 20 that I built up into a pretty lightweight race bike. I really liked how it rode. I used it from xc races to 12 hr solo stuff. However in the end I felt the frame was the overly heavy (well apart from me!) part of the package. So I bought a Scott Scale 35 at a reduced sale price. The Scale 35 has a carbon frame but fairly low end components. Before I even rode the Scale I swapped all the bits between the frames and ended up with a much lighter bike. I still have the Genesis and it has gradually ended up as a slightly more burly bike than it was before.

Between the two the Genesis is easier to ride, the Scale is a bit more twitchy. Uphill the Scale is faster. If I had to make a choice and could only keep one it would be the Scale, it is great as a race bike, but also fine as a weekend general riding bike.

Sorry that probably doesn’t help much!

My wife is running one of the KCNC ones on her Whippet. Creak free so far – although I think the FSA BB that was fitted before it was creak free too.

The KCNC one does look very nice, a shame it is hidden in the frame! As long as the bearings last a while I will replace it like for like when it does die.

I have had a couple of packs of their Recovery powder in the strawberry flavour in the past. Taste is pretty good, I have normally mixed it with milk. It is actually very drinkable, unlike some other recovery drinks.

I haven’t tried their gels, but they look to be very similar to High5 Isogels. I have used the High5 ones and they good and easy to eat/drink due to the high water content. However downside is they are slightly more bulky due to the extra water, so not as good if you are trying to cram loads of stuff into your pockets.

I am a similar waist size to you, and have a pair of the Pace Roubaix bib tights in large and they are a good fit. I am 6 foot. I have a few pairs of DHB bib shorts and they are a better fit in L rather than XL.

We stayed at Village Le Serignan Plage, on the French Med coast last year. It was great, we a had a very nice cabin very close to the beach. we booked directly with the site owners Yelloh, the Yelloh cabins we saw were in nicer locations than the other company’s cabins on the site. If I was staying in France again I would definatley book direct with Yelloh.

On the way home we stayed in the Loire Valley for a few days, this was nice but I preferred the south coast.

I realise it’s speed. But since nobody else uses it, then I must be KoM on my first ride? (assumed it might take more than 1 ride before it recognises one as the fastest).

If it is not showing up as a segment then you can create one yourself. It is easy to do when you view your ride. Once it is created it will then show all the people who have ridden that climb – it seems to take a while to search it’s database to produce the league table.

Njee, Reservoir Run is the section of the Enduro course that is outside the fence at Swinley. It starts with a sort of pump section (with the reservoir on your right) and then has two downhills seperated by a very short uphill. I see we are joint KOM for the full section, Aidan has beaten you on the downhill part of it.

Whoops meant to say “I can’t see the trails being too technical”.

Martin, I think I know who you mean. I doubt I will speeding past too many people on Saturday, maybe on the road bits but I will be mincing down any rooty decents. I rode around there two weeks ago and it wasn’t too wet, it hasn’t rained much since then so it should be very dry, hopefully not too dry as the sand can get a bit deep.

I rode the Woodcote one and and the Ridgeway one last year. I missed the Saxon one , but did hear about lots of punctures! As always with Trailbreaks events they both were very well organised, with good signage. A real mix of bikes on the course, everything from SS CX bikes to large travel mtbs. For both events I just took a small undersaddle bag with some spares and stuffed my pockets with food.

I have entered the Shackleford Trail ride for this Saturday, and will probably ride my CX bike as I can see the trails being too technical and probably a bit more interesting on the cross bike.

I hadn’t heard of it until I saw this post. I have joined up and uploaded the last few month’s rides. It looks good, although I wish I had known about it before as I would have riden some of the segments a bit quicker…

Strangely I am KOM on quite a lot of hills, but they are hills I have only ridden once, and no one else has ridden them. So how did they become Segments? as I haven’t created them.

Good effort Bob. I will post a link up on the Trolls forum as we have a lot of riders from that area.

There is a little spring connection inside that can fail and cause it to switch off. My one started to play up, and it was out of warranty so took it apart and hard wired the connection – there is a guide on the web somewhere. It worked fine after that, well until one of the side buttons failed and I decided it was time to update to a 800.

I would try Garmin to start with and see what they say.

Yes it will do. My wife had one on her Whippet and it worked fine with a Shimano HT2 crankset. I don’t think it was supplied with the spacer you will need on a Whippet frame, but that have been supplied with the frame.

It was Rocket Ron conditions over there yesterday, and wife was going well on Crossmarks. Hopefully whatever falls out of the sky tonight will have drained away by Sunday.
njee, I should be able to provide a cloakroom service on the start line again, as long as you are somewhere near the front.

I am using a Shimano BB with the FSA Grossamer cranks on my CX bike. It fits fine, but was a tight fit.

They do seem a bit hit and miss to me. I have ordered a few instock bits from them recently, they have either turned up the next day, or taken a couple of days to despatch. If I need something urgently I don’t buy from them, and use one of the other online companies. I have always found Merlin reliable, Planet-X seem quick, and I have been impressed with CyclesportsUK on the last couple of orders I have placed with them.

Mine took about two weeks to arrive. I sent them three emails over that time to chase it up, the last one was finally replied with the magic code. No idea why it took them so long.

We had our first in the local hospital, and then our 2nd at home. The benefits of a home birth were:
A dedicated mid-wife the whole time, a second mid-wife arrived near the end of labour. At the hospital one midwife was looking after several people. I think the standard of care we got at home was higher than in hospital, really down to this dedicated attention.
The first night was much nicer with us all being together as a family, with our first it seemed strange going home to an empty house after he was born.
My wife seemed more relaxed during the birthing process.

Our local hospital is only around the corner, so if there had been any complications, we would have had to rush there.

The cleaning up was a bit of a pain afterwards. We have wooden floor, I don’t think a pale carpet would have survived!

Norton, me too. Frame despatched a week ago, but I am still waiting for the £50 voucher. I have emailed CRC twice, both times they have said it is a problem with their system and I will have it soon… I just want the voucher so I can spend some more money with them and finish off building up the frame.

I am pretty sure you will need a longer axle bottom bracket. 113mm works fine on a 68mm BB, but on a 73mm I have found it rubs. I had the same problem on my bike and a 118mm axle solved it.

I have had a normal voucher despatched (code emailed to me), although it is still showing as processing in my account history. The code works as I have spent it already. I bought the £1 voucher on Wednesday to make an order over £100, so I could get the £50 offer, but am still waiting on the £50 code to come through…

I can’t imagine CRC launched the 20% off voucher offer to increase short term cash flow. I would guess the amount of vouchers they sold has been pretty minor compared to their normal turnover. To me it looked more like an offer to get people to shop with them early next year, I would imagine most people would spend additional cash on top of the vouchers too. Plus they must see an increase in voucher sales this time of year, so it help them win more of these sales from the other online retailers.

If you used a code to get a discount when you bought the frame, you wouldn’t have been able to input the £50 offer code anyway – at least I couldn’t. I would assume it was the same for everyone else.

I have just got back from there. Rocket Rons were fine, personally I have never found Swinley muddy enough to need mud tyres.

When I refitted our kitchen at the start of the year I used the same stuff that Flaperon has shown in his picture. I think it is smd5050 in warm white. I am very pleased with it. Lots of natural light, with no dark spots or shadows on the worktop – if I was fitting another kitchen I would use it again.

I had to do a bit of soldering to get it around corners, but other than that very easy to install too.

I am 6ft, and chest size is about 42″. I have an XL Countdown, it is fractionally baggy, but ok. I am sure I could wear a L too, but I guess it could be a bit tight. Unless you were planning to weat lots under it I would go for the large.

Good bit of kit, I have used it on a few wet rides (including 12hrs in the rain at Thetford) and I have been very impressed with it.

I have been to Agadir twice in the past couple of years, and can’t remember seeing anywhere hiring bikes out. If you like running then it is a great beach for running along, just stop when you get to the man with the gun at the end.

You will probably have a bit more luck on the surfing front, a couple staying in our hotel went somewhere north of Agadir surfing everyday and seemed to enjoy it.

I have been driving a 59 plate Passat with the 140 diesel engine for just over a year. It is currently up to 40k miles, I have done about 30k of those. So far it hasn’t had any problems, well except a bad oil change by the local VW dealer which caused an oil leak…

MPG is around 50. A long motorway drive at 70mph will go well above this, faster driving will drop it down to nearer 40. In the summer we did a long trip to the South of France. The car was fully loaded with 2 adults, 2 kids, three bikes and a roof box, most of the way we were doing about 75mph and mpg was around 40, which wasn’t too bad considering the about of stuff stuck on the roof.

It is much less of a drivers car than a BMW. I had a 1 series before this, and the handling of the Passat is very different, however for lots of motorway miles, and carrying kids and bikes the Passat is ideal. Build quailty seems comparable to the BMW.

Mine is a Highline spec, which adds heated leather seats, cruise control and a few other nice extras. Surprisingly the only thing I find it lacking is climate control, it has A/C but you can’t just set it to one temperature and leave it – climate control has pretty much been standard in all the previous cars I have had.

My wife has had a 16″ Whippet since they first came out. She really likes it, she seems to ride it a fair bit faster than the Specialized Epic that it replaced. It has been used mainly for twisty singletrack riding and races. I don’t think she has ever not been on the podium when racing it – although that may say more about women’s xc racing than the frame… It has also done a few day trips at Afan, and has stood up to that sort of use very well, there are a few stone chips in the top paint, but the carbon underneath seems very tough. For the money I don’t think you can go too far wrong with either frame.

I have used them a few times. They have always been pretty quick with their deliveries. I have noticed that they don’t keep everything in stock, so delivery isn’t always next day like CRC or Wiggle should be. I bought a load of Shimano stuff a week or two ago, alot of it wasn’t in stock, but it turned up 3 or 4 days later. I guess the Hoops need to come form Hope first.

Drop them an email. I have had a speedy response in the past.

I had mine done in 2003. Still very pleased with the results. I think I was around -5 in both eyes, with a bit of astigmatisim. Had the op on Thursday, took Friday off work and was back at work on the Monday. Looking back I just wish I had done it sooner.

I was using superstar sintered pads in xtr calipers at D2D. Same shape pads as your XT calipers. They were bedded in before the race and I used the bike for 5 laps, the pads aren’t totally worn out and I could probably have got a few more laps out of them. I haven’t noticed any squealing, although I only fitted them last week as I didn’t think the stock Shimano resin pads would last long at a wet Thetford.

I had to replace the pads on my other bike during the race, that has the older XT calipers, I put in some fresh out of the packet Superstar sintered pads in and they lasted for three laps until the finish. The course was at it’s wettest then. Given they weren’t bedded in, and the sandy wet slop we were riding through I am actually surprised how much pad material was left at the end.

That was a hard race. I managed 5 laps on my geared bike before the drivetrain imploded, I couldn’t fix it, so had to jog back to the solo tent and pick up my singlespeed. In a way I was glad to switch bikes as I was using Rocket Rons on the geared bike and they were reaching the edge of their grip by then. The singlespeed was set up with mud tyres which made a massive difference. I completed another 5 laps on the singlespeed, by the end I had switched to a 34:20 ratio as my legs had nothing left. The part between the 9 and 10 mile marker seemed to go on for ever and ever.

Thanks to the guys (I think you all had skulls on your helmets) in the solo tent who helped me swap over bikes in the middle of the night, you had gone by the morning so couldn’t say thank you. You were a big help.

Sorry to the girl who pointed out I had got my left and right mixed up. I had no idea what was going on by that stage…

Overtaking was difficult for the first few laps. There seemed to be a bigger mix of rider abilty than I remeber from previous years, which did cause some slow trains of riders in the singletrack as backmarkers were caught up. This got easier later as more obvious overtaking lines appeared in the singletrack.

Gee, hope you make a speedy recovery. You passed me on your last lap at the exit to the Flint Pit section, you didn’t seemed to be going at your normal speedy pace as I kept you in my sights for five minutes or so. Now I know you were injured it doesn’t make me feel quite so fast!

I fitted the FSA ones into my carbon Scale, sorry I can’t remember which particular model of headset. No need for headset tools or hammers, just lift the bearings out.

I think the original bearings had the FSA code on.

The Yale wireless range of alarms are easy to fit, and seem to work well. You just need a plug socket in the garage to plug the main control unit in. You can add extras such as an additional remote keypad fairly easily.

It is still worth making sure the bike are locked to something solid too.

The helmet light I am using is an Exodus. I have used it a few times with my Hope Vision 4 on the bars, and it does work well although I often don’t bother turning the Hope on as the Four4th light provides more than enough light.

The Four4th helmet mount is very good, and can be fixed near the front of the helmet. Plus the light unit is tiny, so minimises the chance of it hitting trees.

Pete, Lou’s first mtb was a Trek 4300 (I think that was the model). She had a 16″ frame which fitted well and is 5’4″. I see if I can find a picture. Her two proper bikes now are 16″ On-Ones, but she probably has a more racey set-up than would be ideal for a beginner.

It has a small boot, enough to fit a few bags of shopping in.

The one I had was originally a Ford Crossflow engine, but the previous owner had upgraded it to a Toyota 4A-GE engine, which produced about 160bhp, more than enough power given the weight of the car. Insurance was cheap. I never bothered to check fuel economy, I don’t think it was very good 😆 I owned it for a few years, and then sold it for pretty much what I paid for it, as those sorts of toys go it was a bargain.

The build quaility on Westfields can be a bit variable as most are home built. I don’t think the one I had was especially good, but it held up to lots of hard track days without any problems – except being a bit of a nightmare on noise regs. If you are interested in them, then check out the owners club (WSCC) and get along to one of their regional meetings, normally lots of cars to look at and owners to speak to.

Maybe it’s down to driving technique.

Well if it is I never found the right technique, and I have driven plenty of RWD cars in the past. I have never had a problem in any other car, but getting the 1 series started on a uphill incline covered in snow was very difficult. It probably didn’t helped that mine was fitted with wider rear tyres than most of them. Maybe a few bags of gravel in the boot would have helped?